Appalachian History

Though few Civil War battles were fought there, Southwestern Virginia was critically important to the Confederacy. One reason was the salt works in Saltville, which provided the Confederacy's main source of salt, used as a preservative for army rations.

Two battles took place in an effort to control the works. In the first, on October 2, 1864, Brig. Gen. Stephen G. Burbridge's Union cavalry column struck, but was defeated by Southern forces patched together from several reserve units, commanded by Brig. Gen. John Echols & Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge. However, Union General George Stoneman's troops overwhelmed the town on December 20, and this time managed to destroy the saltworks.

Interior of Saltworks at Saltville, VA, 1864-5.

In its coverage of the battles, Harper's Weekly provided an interesting side bar discussing how salt was produced:

The salt manufactured here is of the very best quality. The works have been deemed so important by the rebels that a Richmond paper lately declared the loss of Savannah an inferior consideration.

"The valley at the head of which Saltville stands," says Porte Crayon [onsite sketch artist for the newspaper], "contains several hundred acres of rich meadow. It is surrounded by a chain of conical hills, from 500 to 800 feet in height, so regularly formed that, but for their extent, they might be mistaken for artificial mounds.

"At the distance of 230 feet below the surface is a bed of fossil salt. The salt is procured by sinking beds to the depth of the salt bed, when the water rises within 46 feet of the surface, and is raised from thence by pumps into large tanks, or reservoirs, elevated a convenient distance above the surface. The brine thus procured is a saturated solution, and for every hundred gallons yields twenty-two gallons of pure salt.

"The process of manufacturing it is very simple. An arched furnace is constructed, probably 150 feet in length, with the doors at one end and the chimney at the other. Two rows of heavy iron kettles, shaped like shallow bowls, are built into the top of the furnace. Large wooden pipes convey the brine from the tanks to these kettles, where the water is evaporated by boiling, while the salt crystallizes and is precipitated.

"During the operation a white saline vapor rises from the boilers, the inhalation of which is said to cure diseases of the lungs and throat. At regular intervals an attendant goes round and with a mammoth ladle dips out the salt, chucking it into loosely woven split baskets, which are placed in pairs over the boilers. Here it drains and drips until the dipper has gone his round with the ladle.

"It is then thrown into the salt-shells, immense magazines on either side of the furnaces. The salt thus manufactured is of the purest quality, white and beautiful as the driven snow. Indeed, on seeing the men at work in the magazines, with pick and shovel, a novice would swear they were working in a snow-bank: while the pipes and reservoirs, which at every leak become coated over with snowy concretions, sparkling like hoar-frost and icicles in the sun, serve to confirm the wintry illusion.

"To avoid land-carriage the brine is piped to the banks of the Holston, and manufactured on the spot. The salt is packed in barrels and is carried Westward down the river, or Eastward on the railroad. An immense coopering establishment is the characteristic adjunct of the lower salt-works."


sources: Harper's Weekly, January 14, 1865; online at www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1865/january/making-salt.htm
www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=2339

1887 ad for Thompson's Bromine-Arsenic Springs Water ---

Thompson's Bromine-Arsenic Springs Water is offered to the public as a gift of nature for the alleviation and cure of many of the ills to which the human family is subject. Wherever it is known it has the unqualified approval of physicians in the treatment of impurities in the blood.

Its constituents.

Bromine and Arsenic commended it to the most favorable consideration of sufferers from Eczema, Scrofula, Cancerous Affections, Primary and Secondary Syphilis, Ulcers, Tumors, Boils, Erysipelas, and Diseases of the Lungs, Kidneys, Womb and Bladder, and it builds and repairs these organs and wasted tissues of the system. Through its action in purifying the blood it imparts health to the skin and gives clearness to the complexion.

Its analysis by Dr. H. Froehling (whose reputation as a chemist is second to no one in this country) is a sure guarantee of its correctness, and any educated physician will testify to the value of the ingredients which are so happily blended in this water.

It is the only combination of the kind ever discovered in this or any other country, and is destined to become the most extensively used natural mineral water in the world.

It is put up in cases of one dozen half-gallon bottles each, and sold at $6.00.

Address all orders to
Lewis W. Burwell
General Manager, Saltville, Va.


source: www.newrivernotes.com/nc/heal1887.htm



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There was a notable character, a Mrs. Henagar, who had the reputation of being a witch. Her upper eye-lids were paralyzed and drooped over her eyes, giving her the appearance of being blind. Whenever she read her Bible she was obliged to stoop over it and hold the lids up with her hands. Then her vision was perfect.

Mrs. Preston asked her, "Why, Mrs. Henagar, do people say you are a witch?"

"Law, bless your sweet soul, honey," she replied, "it's because I have got more sense than all of 'em put together."

This bad reputation, however, clung to her, and every rise that had "a spell" upon it, and every child that had convulsions in the neighborhood was supposed to be bewitched by Mrs. Henagar. So fixed was this belief that Charley Talbot, a notable hunter and marksman, once had " a spell " on his gun, and he could not win at shooting matches nor kill a deer in the woods.

He said that Mrs. Henager had a " grudge " against him, and had put the " spell " on his gun. To avenge himself and rid the neighborhood of this supposed meddlesome person, he determined to practice a "spell " upon her. To accomplish this it was necessary to draw an outline of her figure upon a tree and shoot it in the heart with a bullet in which there was a large portion of silver. This he did, but, to his surprise, Mrs. Henager did not "pine away and die," but continued in her usual health. He was, therefore, convinced that it was not Mrs, Henagar that had "spelled " his gun, but some other witch.

Many other stories of witchcraft were circulated and believed, but, perhaps the best authenticated was that of the children of young Mrs. Talbot and her cousin, Mrs. Henagar. They lived together on the north side of the river, about a mile from the King Salt-Works. Their children were little girls, nearly of the same age, and had learned to talk well enough to be understood. On a bright summer day the two mothers barred the door of the house in which the children were left, and went to the river side to do their washing.

Suddenly there was a noise and shrill outcry from the house, and the mothers ran back to it. On entering the door one of the children was found sitting in the “crib,” and the other greatly excited and alarmed running about the floor.

Soon it was discovered that the one on the floor had lost the power of articulation; was, indeed, dumb, and the other, in the cradle, was paralyzed in its lower limbs, but could speak. No intelligent explanation of what had occurred could be given by the only child which could talk, and, as far as she could indicate, the only cause for alarm was that a black cat had come down the chimney with a cap on its head.


This solved the mystery, and was accepted by the families and the neighborhood as a clear case of witchcraft.

Subsequent events confirmed the opinion. On the anniversary of this event the mothers and children went to bed just as they had done for a year; but, lo! when they awoke next morning the paralyzed child sprang up and ran about the floor as actively as her cousin had done the day before, but that cousin sat in bed talking in the advanced language of a year, but could not move her legs.

This periodical interchange of condition continued for two or more years, and until the paralyzed child sickened and died. The dumb one lived to be an old woman.


source: "HISTORICAL SKETCHES AND REMINISCENCES OF AN OCTOGENARIAN.," by Thomas L Preston, BF Johnson Publishing Co, Richmond, VA, 1900


Preston was the son of Gen. Francis Preston & grandson of Gen. William Campbell & Elizabeth Henry Campbell Russell (sister of Patrick Henry. The historical sketches referred to in the title are first hand accounts of Washington County, VA & of the Preston Saltworks at Saltville, which Preston operated before the Civil War. According to the 1850 Federal Census for Smyth County, Preston was worth over $500,000 on paper, making him one of the wealthiest men in America (he was actually heavily in debt at the time.)



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