The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1950-04-27
springs were discovered.
Early Salt Well


Justus Pop" Warner, pioneer
settler in Liverpool township, Medina
County, in 1911, had the first salt
we'll there and made the township
one of the largest salt producing
districts in the country. Warmers
we'll was on one bank of Rocky River
and his salt was carried across the
stream in kettles on the back of an
old horse which forded the shadows.
When Warner built his house there
he took 800 pounds of salt to Cleve-
land and swapped it for 100 pounds
of nails. A barrel of salt then sold
for $40 in cash or trade.
In the writer's own History of
Medina County," is the yarn about
Ephriam Lindsay, Is, who in 1871
went afoot the 125 miles through the
forest in deep snow from Bruins
wick township to Warmers salt
works after a bushel of salt. Some
hunter. had told Ephriam's father,
William, that he had a bushel of
salt coming to him at Liverpool and
the Lindsays could have it for SO
cents.
At Liverpool Ephriam Lindsay
found another bushel of salt he could
buy and started back home through
tl,o erox,, ,,J x,.aoJ- xx,;tL 49,, h,,cbal-
of dripping salt in sack over his
shoulders. The briney smell attract
ed wolves, which the boy had to
fight off all the way to Brunswick,
walking and running all night with
few stops for rest. The trip took
two days and nights-all for a
dollars worth of dripping salt.
Salt Carefully Guarded
Often in the cabins salt was not
used at all except in case of sickness,
being put away and carefully guard
ed for just such occasions.
One of the first acts of the first
Constitutional Convention, which met
November 90, 1902, at Chillicothe to
ratify and sign the first constitution,
was proposition to the people that
"thirty-eight sections of land where
salt-springs had been found, of which
one township was on the Scioto, one
section on the Muskingum, and one
section in the United States Military
Tract should be granted to the state,
never to be sold or leased for a
longer term than 10 years" 1t was
the old Scioto salt works that
prompted that suggestion by the
constitutional convention.
OF the 20 Public Land tracts OF
which Ohio is made up, the Goth but
not least important, was the "Salt
Sections" Near the middle of Jack
son County, Congress originally
reserved from sale one six-mile
square township around and includ-
ing the Scioto salt-licks; a quarter
of a fve-mile square township in
Delaware County; and in all forty
two and one-fourth sections-27, ,040
acres, these were the "Salt Sections"
An act of Congress, December 2s,
1924, authorized the Ohio legislature
to sell these lands and to apply the
proceeds thereof ITO such literary
purposes as said legislature may
think proper; but to no other purpose
whatever"
One hundred and fifty years have
made a big difference in the incur
sion after salt. In the little stroll
down the pavement to the delicates-
sen in the middle of the block after
dime box of the stuff which "when
it rains it pours," it is fitting to
ruminate a bit about the wolves
swapping at little Ephriam Lindsay's
brine-dripping legs or Grandpappy
Warmers plight when, over 90, he
fell into his own salt well and couldn't