Salt Wells, Bon Secour, Baldwin County, Alabama

Profile manager: Judy Bramlage [send private message]

Introduction

{See Libraary of Congress for pictures}

Salt Production

The salt works were cleverly planned and constructed. The buildings were open sheds down the center of which ran a big rectangular brick box resting on the brick pavement. It had holes opposite each other like those in an iron stove but much larger. Into these holes, and held up by a wide flange, fitted huge iron pots. This elongated stove had a huge brick firebox at one end and at the other end a tall chimney. When the pots were filled with brine a large fire was built at the firebox end, and the smoke, heat, and flame drawn through the stove by the draft boiled the pots and evaporated the water, leaving the salt to be scraped out.

The pits from which the brine was derived were sunk into the salt marsh and faced with heavy squared timbers. The top of the pits was above high tide and the strong, salt brine seeped through the loosely jointed sides. Saltwater is heavier than fresh, therefore the salt water sinks and collects at a lower level. Each day as the salt brine rose in the pits it was removed in buckets and conveyed to the boiling vats. Hundreds of pits lined the sides of the river in the salt marshes, and the report states that 990 kettles were destroyed. If there were as many as fifty kettles in each shed there were approximately twenty such sheds in operation.^[1]

Attacks on Salt Wells

Civil War Naval History
September 8-9, 1864

U.S.S. Tritonia, Rodolph, Stockdale, and an Army transport commenced a two-day expedition under Acting Lieutenant George Wiggin to destroy large salt works at Salt House Point near Mobile Bay. Only Rodolph and Stockdale crossed the bar and entered Bon Secours River. Arriving at the Point at mid-morning, Wiggin sent two boat crews ashore and demolition of the salt works began immediately. So extensive were the works that destruction was not completed until late afternoon the next day. Wiggin reported: "I found some of the works well built and very strong, particularly one known as the Memphis Works, said to have cost $60,000. . . . Another work, which was very strong and well built, said to have cost $50,000." Rear Admiral Farragut, who had ordered the attack, observed: "There were 55 furnaces, in which were manufactured nearly 2,000 bushels of salt per day, and their destruction must necessarily inconvenience the rebels."^[2]

Slaves

Sources

1. ↑ Written in 1965 by Charley and Meme Wakeford for the book “Food, Fun, and Fable.”
2. ↑ Historycentral.com