King Salt History

19th Century Malden: King Salt in the Kanawha Salines

by Larry L. Rowe

King Salt Takes Control

In Colonial America, salt was rare and very expensive. It was imported by ship to be used as a nutritional supplement and in large quantities to pack meat. Salt was essential for the pioneers to carry meat stores with them into the Ohio Valley and beyond.

From 1806 to 1808, in present day Malden, David and Joseph Ruffner developed the world's first deep well drilling process, and the area known as the "Kanawha Salines" became a very wealthy industrial region on the frontier.

Malden's salt makers had a 2 decade monopoly on sales of salt in the Ohio Valley, the Mississippi Valley, and throughout President Jefferson's new Louisiana Territory. Their drilling techniques were innovative, but it was the natural river transportation system that gave them a monopoly in salt markets all over America. As internal water transportation canals were completed, the Kanawha Salines salt makers lost their grip on salt sales.

With this early industrial boom, "King Salt" took control of western Virginia's economy, making this area one of America's richest and most industrialized.

Malden's most famous figure is Booker T. Washington. He learned to read in Malden and became a world renowned educator. He is acclaimed as an educator, author and leader of African-Americans. He was proclaimed by W.E.B. DuBois as the greatest American of any race to come out of the southern states between the Civil War and World War I.

Early Industrial Development

On high ground along the Kanawha River early Malden was a small New England style subdivision in the Kanawha Salines first called "Saltborough," on open land between the Ruffner salt works at today's Port Amherst, and the Dickinson property where today the Dickinson farm and Terra Salis Garden Center are located. These families along with the Donnellys were the area's most prominent landholders.

Site of Dickinson Salt Works

In the 1790s pioneer Daniel Boone followed native Americans to this area for salt. For centuries native Americans had used this area for hunting and to fill their salt stores. Daniel Boone was a pioneer leader and walked to Richmond to represent Kanawha County in the Virginia Assembly, before moving on to another salt area on the Kentucky frontier during John Adams' Presidency.

Location of Daniel Boone's cave in the 1790's and original site of Booker T. Washington's cabin in the 1860's.

After the Ruffner's deep well drilling in 1808 and through the War of 1812, salt makers in the Kanawha Salines established a renowned monopoly on salt production, until the 1830s when New York's Erie Canal and other canals opened up new salt areas to the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. The Erie Canal made New York City America's most prominent city because it became the international port for goods sent to and received from the new Western frontier.

The Kanawha Salines' famous "Red Salt," colored by the iron in its salt brine, was a valued type of meat packing salt. It was easily shipped in barrels by flatboats to the Ohio River and down to Cincinnati, which later would become America's greatest pork packing center decades before railroads and Cyrus McCormick's Virginia Reaper opened up the American Midwest and made Chicago the meat packing center of America in the middle of the 19th Century.

Salt was produced by boiling off water in the salt brine. The salt brine was underground below bedrock. The Ruffner's new bedrock drilling technique revolutionized deep well drilling. It made salt production possible and very profitable, at 4 to 6 times their costs of producing salt. Drillers from the Ruffner salt works were so renowned for their skill, that they were called to Titusville, Pennsylvania to drill America's first oil well in 1859.

By the 1840s, America's transportation had greatly improved, and Malden lost its salt monopoly. By the 1870s, the Great Railroad Era concluded the boom era of the Malden salt industry.

King Salt Creates Coal and Natural Gas Industries and Business Trusts

The fuel sources developed for the salt industry in Malden changed the world. Timber was first used to fire the salt furnaces. As the area's mountains were stripped of timber, David Ruffner substituted coal as the heat source in 1817, and thus he began America's first industrial application of coal.

Natural gas created a burning springs near present day DuPont Middle School. This phenomena was owned by George Washington and referred to in his Will. In the salt drilling process, natural gas was first considered no more than a dangerous nuisance, but in 1841 it was used by William Tompkins of Cedar Grove to fuel his salt furnaces and to light his salt works at night. With this use of natural gas, William Tompkins created the world's natural gas industry.

In 1818, the salt producers created a new and hated business innovation: the Business Trust.

It was simple. With their monopoly on salt, the salt makers agreed to fix the price of salt and to limit its production and distribution by areas. Business trusts were outlawed in America in the early 20th Century by President Theodore Roosevelt through the Sherman Anti Trust Act.

But outside the United States, business trusts continue to be used to control oil prices and production by the International Oil Cartel. Most all of the major salt makers entered into the salt trust, with the exception of the partnership of the Dickinsons and Shrewsburys which was formed late, around 1832. This partnership never joined in renewals of the salt trust but benefited from its controls.

In 1830, the Ruffner family created a land corporation and laid out the subdivision called "Saltborough" which is today's Old Malden. A New England style street plan was used. The streets were laid out in a grid with the houses placed at the front of the lots and their working yards at the back, with alleys between the streets.

The origin of the name "Malden" is unknown. There are water front towns near Boston and in England with that name. The postmark for the area was "Kanawha Salines" until after the Civil War. The Charleston postmark was "Kanawha Courthouse" until after the Civil War.

The Kanawha Salines produced millions of bushels of salt each year. By 1850, 3,000 were people working in the salt industry. Malden had 3 hotels and a bank. But down river, its gentile neighbor Charleston, was spreading across Ruffner farmland and becoming the prominent town in the Kanawha Valley. The Kanawha County Courthouse had been located in Charleston since about 1800.

At the beginning of the Civil War an historic flood destroyed most of the salt works and the salt industry began to decline, as other salt producing regions prospered with America's growing rail transportation system.

Prominent Leaders of the 19th and 20th Centuries

Many salt entrepreneurs made, and some lost, fortunes in salt and other business ventures.

Old Ruffner log cabin, near the Craik-Patton house on the Midland Trail, circa 1790's

The Ruffners were very successful and were leaders in the Kanawha Salines, in salt production and innovation, education, religion and community development.

Their rivals were the prominent Dickinson and Shrewsbury families, who were major landowners and later salt makers. They came to the Kanawha Valley in the late 1700s and formed the prominent Dickinson and Shrewsbury salt partnership around 1832.

Two daughters of John Dickinson married brothers, Joel and John Shrewsbury, around 1800. The Shrewsburys built the Old Stone House in today's Belle near the DuPont plant which then was at the center of the Dickinson family land holdings.

At the end of the Civil War, Kanawha Valley Bank was organized by John Q. Dickinson and Henry C. Dickinson, a Confederate war hero from Virginia who was mayor of Charleston when he died in 1871, along with 2 prominent attorneys of the day. These directors guided much of the commercial development of the State in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Kanawha Valley Bank is today remembered as One Valley Bank, which was West Virginia's largest bank at the beginning of the 21st Century.

Antebellum Homes for King Salt

Salt makers left many antebellum Greek Revival Style homes in the subdivision now called Old Malden.

Putney House (Law Office), circa 1836

The Putney House is an unspoiled mansion built in 1836 by a physician, Richard E. Putney, who had married Ann Ruffner, David Ruffner's daughter. Dr. Putney laid out the Saltborough subdivision and practiced medicine in Malden for over 50 years. This home is unspoiled by renovation and is today used as the law offices of James Coleman and James Jeter.

Hale House, circa 1835

Also prominent is an 1838 2 story brick house which became the home of Dr. John P. Hale. Today it is the retail home to Cabin Creek Quilts Cooperative. Dr. Hale later moved to Charleston and became its mayor in 1871, on the death of Henry C. Dickinson.

Dr. Hale is a legendary character in the history of the Kanawha Valley and West Virginia. He was a great grandson of pioneer Mary Ingles. Dr. Hale came to Malden as a physician, but he stopped his practice to become a salt maker and later a successful Charleston hotel entrepreneur. He built Hale House on Hale Street at Kanawha Boulevard, to serve passengers on the new C & O Railroad. He made and lost several fortunes in and out of the salt industry.

In 1755, Mary Ingles was captured by the Shawnee in Virginia and brought to the Malden area where she was forced to make salt.

Dr. Hale wrote a key early history book, TransAllegheny Pioneers, about Mary Ingles' trip home following the Ohio, Kanawha and New Rivers, and the key events of our area in the 19th and 20th Centuries, following her famous trek.

Hale House was Charleston's first elegant railroad hotel. In 1873, Collis B. Huntington completed the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad on the Southside of the Kanawha River. The C & O station was located where the Charleston station is today. A boat was used to ferry passengers across the River until the first Southside Bridge was built. After Hale House burned, the Ruffner Hotel replaced it until the 1960s, when it became today's parking lot at Hale Street and Kanawha Boulevard.

The Industry Legacy of King Salt

Malden's industrial legacy is the Kanawha Valley's successive boom eras for the coal, natural gas and chemical industries. David Ruffner was the first industrialist to use coal as a fuel source in 1817. By 1898, the salt industrialists helped establish the Kanawha coal boom when they had America's first complete river lock system built on the Kanawha River. This lock system created cheap, reliable transportation for coal shipments from the Upper Kanawha Valley coal fields. This late 19th Century government and commercial collaboration in turn led to the creation of an industry giant, we remember now as Union Carbide. It began modestly near Clendenin by making carbide (calcium carbide) to light coal miners' hats.

Over the years, engineers in the salt industry created new processes which encouraged the location and expansion of chemical processing plants in the Kanawha Valley. In the 1920s, a plant building boom here made the Kanawha Valley the "World's Chemical Center."

Malden's cultural legacy is unequaled in West Virginia due to the achievements of a 9 year old boy who learned to read in Malden.

Booker T. Washington was born in 1857, during the horror of slavery. He became Malden's most famous son, as a national statesman for African-Americans and as founder of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. He was the equal of natural leaders like Frederick Douglas, Theodore Roosevelt, and Andrew Mellon.

In 1865, at the end of the Civil War, little Booker was 9 years old when he walked barefoot with his family from near Roanoke, Virginia, some 225 miles to freedom in Malden.

Freedom meant a home with a wooden floor and windows, but it also meant that he would go to work with other children in the salt industry. He learned simple math on his own and he knew when his wages were miscalculated. Then, adults looked to him to be sure they were paid properly for their piece work wages.

Showing such obvious promise, around age 10 or 11, he worked as a garden boy for the rich Ruffner family. A "Yankee lady" known to be "very particular" saw his potential, and she taught him to read and all the social graces of their time.

Viola Ruffner had married into the prominent Ruffner family. No photographs of her have been found by this author.

Booker T. Washington (WV Archives)

In a nationally publicized event, Booker T. Washington paid respect to Viola Ruffner by placing a rose at her grave, which is in the old Ruffner family cemetery at a corner of what is now Port Amherst near Campbells Creek.

The Ruffners were well known for the work of educator and abolitionist Dr. Henry Ruffner. He had been President of Washington College, today named Washington and Lee University for its most famous president, Robert E. Lee.

In 1847, Dr. Ruffner published the controversial Ruffner Pamphlet advocating for the end of the horror of slavery in America. Dr. Ruffner's perspective was pragmatic, but coming from a prominent southern family, it made an impact in its day. He died early in the Civil War.

In 1895, Booker T. Washington achieved international fame for his oratory at the Atlanta Exposition. His speech is considered a fine statement of race relations in America after the Reconstruction Era and before the rise of racism in the 1920s, as shown in the early movie, "Birth of a Nation."

In 1901, Booker T. Washington wrote Up from Slavery, a fascinating account of his life and philosophy. He was not kind to Malden about its smoke and odors, but he spoke well of its leading citizens. This book recently was voted America's third best nonfiction work of the 20th Century.

In 1901, Theodore Roosevelt invited Dr. Washington to the White House for a meeting, which turned into a dinner, and, by accident, Dr. Washington thus became the first African-American to dine formally with a President at the White House. Two weeks later, to the President's great surprise, this event created an international sensation, all of it negative in the southern states. But with the furor, Dr. Washington's leadership was acknowledged to be supreme at the time.

After his death in 1915, Dr. Washington was eulogized by his critic, W. E. B. DuBois, who said Dr. Washington was the greatest man of any race to come out of the South between the Civil War and World War I.

Dr. Washington traveled often to Malden by train to visit his beloved sister Amanda Johnson. Notably, some 40 years after his barefoot freedom trek to Malden, Dr. Washington had his sister living in a fine 2 story brick house on Malden's main street. It was straight across from today's Cabin Creek Quilts which had been the home of John P. Hale after he too had come from Hale's Fort, Virginia, as a rich man, near where Dr. Washington had lived in a dirt floor cabin. A beautiful women's park today is on the site of Amanda Johnson's home. Bricks on the monument are from her home.

After college, young Booker T. Washington taught school and traveled around the newly formed State of West Virginia as a paid orator to advocate for the permanent relocation of the State Capitol from Wheeling to Charleston. He then married a Malden girl, Fannie Norton Smith.

Earlier Dr. Hale was mayor of Charleston and had caused the State Capitol to move here for the first time, to be in the center of the state's major industrial commercial area. King Salt had made Charleston the economic center of the State, and King Salt brought the State Capitol here to stay.

Today a replica of little Booker's cabin and school can be seen behind the historic African Zion Baptist Church. (For tours call 304 925-9499)

Fine Church Architecture

Malden's finest architectural achievement is the quaint African Zion Baptist Church. It was organized in 1850 by African-Americans including the Wayne, Isaac, Sullivan and Johnson families. It is renowned as the "Mother Church" for all African-American Baptists in West Virginia.

This small white frame church is an excellent example of small church architecture in the southern states. The current building was constructed by the congregation after the Civil War under the leadership of Reverend Lewis Rice, and it was in this building where young Booker taught Sunday school as a young man and was a life long member. (For tours call 304 925-9499)

Malden is also home to other early, quaint West Virginia churches. The Malden Methodist Church and Malden Baptist Church were organized in the early 1800s and their old structures have classic southern styles. These churches have regular Sunday morning services.

Kanawha Salines Presbyterian Church, circa 1840

Most prominent of Malden's churches is the fine red brick Kanawha Salines Presbyterian Church, established by Dr. Henry Ruffner before he became President of Washington College. In 1840, as part of the Ruffner's new "Saltborough" subdivision, the church's current sanctuary was constructed, with a balcony for African-Americans, common at that time.

Malden Baptist Church

Malden Methodist Church

1922 Fire Destroys Commercial Center of Malden

In 1922, most of Malden's 3 story frame commercial buildings were destroyed by fire, and today the village is a residential community with the distinction of having a fine example of each American architectural style of dwellings constructed in most every decade since the 1830s.

Malden is home to many retired persons because the people of Malden rarely move away from this quaint town where long life and good living are valued.

Good Living Retirement Homes in Malden provides the state's most gentile and dignified assisted living for elderly persons. The Poet Laureate Louise McNeil Pease wrote her last books while living grandly here in the early 1990's. (For information call Karen Glazier at 304 925-1608)

20th Century Rebirth of Malden

In 1974, a visionary Vista worker from Massachusetts, James Thibeault, moved to Malden and he began a movement of residents to preserve its history.

He organized Cabin Creek Quilts in 1970 and it is today the only nonprofit quilt cooperative still in operation. The work is done in the homes of the members. (For information on Cabin Creek Quilts call 304 925-9499)

James Thibeault first worked in Malden to create a park at the ramshackle ruins of Amanda Johnson's home. It is now "The Women's Park," across from Cabin Creek Quilts' retail home.

In 1981, lifelong residents Martha Cole, who was state teacher of the year in 1980, and her sister Llewellyn Cole, a well known and respected state educator, started the Malden Historic Society with the help of James Thibeault.

The Coles are descendants of the Shrewsbury salt makers, and their father John Slack Cole was a well known surveyor and the son of a 19th Century State Librarian, John Lewis Cole. They guide many sightseers through Malden's historic sites.

Hale House, circa 1838

In 1991, James Thibeault secured grant funding for Cabin Creek Quilts to purchase and restore John P. Hale's house as its retail store for handmade quilts.

In 1970, Jackie Onasis purchased a Cabin Creek quilt in a Cape Cod shop, and started a New York fashion revolution for patchwork designs.

Mr. Thibeault helped introduce the modern fashion world to patchwork by driving a van on Fifth Avenue in New York City with quilts tied to its sides. His work at Cabin Creek Quilts and the work of Sharon Rockefeller and Florette Angel at Mountain Artisans in Charleston made patchwork design part of the world of fashion.

Booker T. Washington's Cabin, 1998

In 1994, James Thibeault had Cabin Creek Quilts save and restore Norton House at the corner of Commerce Drive and Malden Drive. In 1998, he had Cabin Creek Quilts construct a prototype salt village with a reconstruction of little Booker's cabin and school, behind the African Zion Baptist Church. These projects were funded with federal and state highway grants, among others.

Today James Thibeault is known as the "Father of Historic Preservation and Tourism Development in West Virginia." He is cited for his work in a new book on the life of Booker T. Washington for grandly living out Booker's philosophy by putting down his bucket where he is, to help his community and thereby the whole world.

King Salt Lives on in the 21st Century

In 1998, a severe hail storm struck Malden and many homes had roofs and walls damaged.

The repairs have today left Malden a "shiny penny," ready in the 21st Century to lead West Virginia once again in the state's next great industry, after salt, and coal and oil and natural gas, and chemicals, that is, Historic Preservation and Tourism Development.

Thanks to the West Virginia Archives for photographs of Booker T. Washington

THE END

NO SALT MINES IN MALDEN

In the Kanawha Salines we drilled for salt brine and boiled off the water to provide fine salt. This boiling process gave rise to the modern coal and natural gas industries

.

Rock salt was mined underground like coal in Europe, but never here in the Kanawha Salines.

Annotated Bibliography for 19th Century Malden: King Salt in the Kanawha Salines