Here's Your Answer on SALT ...

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Here's Your Answer on SALT

Could someone tell me about salt, where did our mountaineers, voyagers and early travelers get salt from needed to cure meat and personal use? What is Orsa salt found listed in journals and trade lists?

Here's a little information to answer your question on SALT.

Subject: Orsa salt

Orsa salt is salt that is mined from the salt flats of Utah. This has been in many journals as a trade item the Native Americans used with the French, Spanish and of course the European or Americans. It has been found from the Mississippi River west into the Rockies. I read one account that was from 1670 mentioning Orsa salt and its pinky-brown color, even Jed Smith traded for this same salt in the 1830’s. A good correct period salt that covers many time periods. Hope this helps with your question.

Subject: Salt
On the Swan River (W. Manitoba), there was a salt spring whose waters NW Co. voyageurs boiled to make salt. "It is not so strong, as that which comes from Canada, but it preserves Meat &c. well." 1804, IIRC (Harmon, 34)

Salt was also made by boiling water from "the saline Brooks of the Red River". (Thompson, _Narrative_, 151), salt was shipped in kegs. (Why carry it in open wooden pails when a cooper can make a keg with only a little more effort?)

Some people did manage to get by without salt. Midshipman Hood was wintering at the HBC's Cumberland House in 1819 when he wrote "The Indians do not use salt, and the Europeans indulge a little indolence at the expense of living without it; for though it is found in many parts of the country, in springs and on the earth, they eat fish the whole year improvised with it..." (Hood, 47)

In other words, making salt for their food wasn't worth the effort!

Here are some spices & other foodstuffs which were available to David Thompson when he placed his order for supplies for the North West Company's Columbia Department for 1807 & 1808 (from Dempsey, _Rocky Mountain House_, 37-41).

Around Danville, Illinois, the Big Vermilion River forms at the confluence of three tributaries, the North Fork, the Middle Fork, and the Salt Fork. The big Vermilion continues into Indiana and dumps into the Wabash about 5 miles over the IL/IN border. An old mining area with coal and zinc deposits: the Vermilion part comes from the red shale deposits, and it is evident everywhere there are strip mines and in heaps from deep shaft mines.

From earliest times, salt was obtained by the Indians from deposits on the Salt Fork. Sometime before the permanent trading post in Chicago was established, two men had a trading post at Danville. Salt was one of the commodities which they traded. Slightly later, a salt works was established on this sight.

Large kettles were brought in for the purpose of evaporating the briny water. Since Gurdon Hubbard was the chief trader for the American Fur Co. during this same time, and since his main outpost was in Danville, it is safe to assume that he had his hands in this kettle. There is a monument there today with one of the original salt kettles. This salt could have gone in several directions by water to the Wabash, and upstream toward Northern Indiana and Western Ohio. By water to the Wabash, and downstream to the Ohio, where it could have gone upstream and back East, or it could have gone downstream to the Mississippi. From there it could have gone North to Ft. deChartres and St. Louis for use in the western fur trade or gone South downstream toward New Orleans and points in between.

Thirdly, and highly likely, it could have gone overland, North to Chicago. Hubbard often transported goods overland both on foot and on horseback. From here, the salt could have gone down the Illinois by boat, or back to the main factory at Ft. Mackinaw.

At some time, the operation ceased to be profitable and went under. I read the documentation for this many years ago in papers written and stored in Vermilion County and compiled into the "History of Vermilion Country."

As for the salt and carrying it any distance: wood buckets or iron pots would work for processing it. But for moving any distance, probably like anything else, wrapped in cloth or blanket material - then some kinds of waterproof covering like greased leather or rawhide, just a guess - anyone have any documentations after being processed and "caked".

There were some well-known salt-works around the Great Salt Lake and north of there that are mentioned in accounts of the era. Osborne Russell? Salt was one of the commodities packed into rendezvous and remember reading of a reference to a salt mill, presumably used to grind caked salt for use. Salt and hunters went hand in hand through history, as natural salt licks are the great "singles bars" of Mother Nature. So, woodsmen kept an eye peeled for salt-making spots and also used them for meat-making.

Lewis and Clark carried a large quantity of salt and they cooked a large amount of salt on the west coast. I'm not sure this was a common practice with The Rocky Mountain Fur Trappers.

In Washington's "kitchen mess kit", they stored salt, Havana Brown sugar and spices in metal tin containers that where tinned on the inside, the outside had turned a dark gray color from age, but the tinned inside was dull but not really discolored for its age. There were samples of home spun cloth that had lined the spice and sugar containers, so apparently the spices, sugar and maybe even the salt were wrapped in cloth - then stored in the containers. With the high moisture rate back there and being near the coast, I would think the items would stick to the cloth if not used daily, that's just a guess - nothing documented.

For large quantities some of the traders carried "caked" salt in wooden buckets to settlements from the Mississippi River east. Salt is evaporated from sea water in ponds. I have seen salt in crystal form and that is how it comes in lumps from 1 to 7 inch thick. Salt as we know it has been ground. It can be crushed between stones on the trail. The best way is to carry a small lump of rock salt and a piece of old file. Just rub the rock salt over the file over the meal. Salt drops where you want it. Somehow the metal taste isn't transferred from the file. Wash file after use when you rinse utensils. DON"T use soap on it.

In Life in the Rocky Mountains, Ferris wrote:

Page 128 "At the mouth of Beaver Creek the mountains retire apart leaving a beautiful valley fifteen miles long, and six to eight broad, watered by several small streams which unite and form "Salt River", so called from the quantity of salt, in a crystalized form, found upon most of its branches.." On page 266 he continues to talk about the same area; "The salt found in the country is, however, more commonly found attached to stones, in the bottoms of dried up pools, like ice, and requires a hard blow, in most cases, to separate them.

Breaking from the strata as much salt as we could conveniently carry, we collected the fragments and put them into bags, which we lashed to our saddles, and sallied out into the prairie on our return to camp." Yet more on page 346. "We passed three miles down the river and found the salt in a slough on the west side of it. It was found on the surface of a black stinking mire, fifty or sixty paces in circuit; the upper Stata was fine, and white as snow, to the depth of two inches; beneath which, was a layer of beautiful crystals, to the depth of five or six inches, that rested on the surface of the mire.

We slowly sank into the latter to our knees, whilst scooping up the salt, and then changed places, for we could scarcely extricate ourselves at the depth; and concluded that if we should remain long enough in the same spot, we would at length disappear entirely. This opinion was corroborated by thrusting down a stick four feet in length, without meeting any resistance, more than at the surface. I gathered about half a bushel in a few minutes, and returned with my companions, who were equally fortunate, to camp."

Osborne Russell talked about Salt River area on page 12; "On the 10th of May we moved down the river about 12 miles to a stream running into it on the west side called Scotts Fork. Here are some fine Salt Springs the Salt forms on the pebbles by evaporation to the depth of 5 or 6 inches in a short time after the snow has disappeared 11th May After gathering a Supply of Salt we traveled down the river 15 miles .....

" On page 96 Russell talks about returning to the salt springs to gather salt. Charles Larpenteur on page 48 of his book said, " I had a partner, a German, and we could together purchase a bladder (of pemmican); but as to salt and pepper, which we had to buy-salt $1 a pint, pepper $2-we were not in partnership. each had his small sack containing pepper and salt mixed and used it as he thought proper.

With all the salt around, I wouldn't think that too much of it was hauled out to rendezvous from St. Louis when it was available throughout the area of these hardy men.



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Interesting stuff.