Note 104 — TWO YEARS' RESIDENCE, &c. &c.

The manufacture of salt in the Kanawha Valley, for more than half a century its leading industry, is now a thing of the past. The Salt or Great Buffalo Lick on the Kanawha River, near the mouth of Campbell's Creek, was visited in succession by buffaloes, Indians, and pioneers to obtain salt. As early as 1797 a certain Elisha Brooks began in a crude way to manufacture salt, but it was first established as a profitable industry by the Ruffner brothers in 1808. In 1817 coal was substituted for wood as fuel. At that time there were about thirty furnaces and fifteen or twenty wells in operation, producing between 600,000 and 700,000 bushels annually. The maximum of prosperity was reached about 1850, when the output was 3,000,000 bushels for the year.—Ed.