SALT

DELAWARE COASTAL SALT INDUSTRIES

A salt industry existed along the Atlantic coast decades before the Revolution , however, very

small and of local operations.

During the Revolution, Colonel John Jones, of the Sussex County Militia, received 1000

pounds from Legislature to build a saltworks near Indian River. He was to provide 3000 bushels

of salt a year for the Continental Army troops and the state for its citizens. By the end of two years,

Jones, had yet to produce a single bushel. Early Delaware history has told that “ Along the sea shore,

at the salt lands, shalow pits are dug, had sea water gathered in them, evaporated in crude saltworks and used it that locality”. History also says that during the 1812 War salt was made on salt flats

beyon Henlopen Lighthouse which sold for $3.00 a bushel. The building used at this flat, the property

occupied by Thomas Norman, were washed away by a 1888 storm, known as “Normans Flood” .

In 1832, a report by Joshua Gilpin to Secretary of the Treasury, Louis McLane, tells there is a small salt business on the coast, conducted by poor people, boiling sea water in large pots to evaporate it, then sold in the neighborhood.

There is doubt that salt was ever produced at Salt Pond, north of Bethany, which was thought

to be too brackish for fish to live. This is denied by Willim Hall of Halls Store whose property skirts

the pond and he daily catches large numbers of fish. Halls Store is now Ocean View village.

The Fenwick salt works shut down about 1875 and there was a salt works at Cotton Patch Hill,

north of Bethany, during the 19^th century. The earliest salt works is thought to have been on the old natural inlet to Indian River Bay north of Cotton Patch. The salt produced here was known as the

Baltimore Hundred salt at the markets.

Another salt works was at or near Gordons Pond, the land owned by the Dodd family and that salt was made after the summer farm season until about 1876. The account of this operation is of

interest because it demonstrates the habit of the people of the day utilizing all their resources.

History books tell that the Dodd's made salt in connection with clearing the forest for farm

lands new ground. They used the trash, stumps and whatever, as fuel for the salt operation.

After the farm work was finished, the Dodds went to the Gordon Pond salt works and took hogsheads of brine which were roll or pulled by teams of oxen to the homestead where it was evaporated and sold in neighborhood towns in the fall for curing meats.

Abstract September 6, 2017, Harrison H., from Dick Carters”History of Sussex County” in the July 1976 Delaware Coast Press.