234 ILLINOIS STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



years production had increased to 200,000 bushels,^ and 

 salt had become a leading basis for the commercial pros- 

 perity of southern Illinois. 



Shawneetown, situated on the Ohio River 12 miles east 

 of the salt works, owes both its origin and much ot its 

 subsequent importance to the salt trade. It was never a 

 large town ; the fact that at first individuals could not hold 

 title to their property, because until 1814 it was part of the 

 salt reservation, undoubtedly had a depressing effect upon 

 its size and upon the character of its improvements. For a 

 number of years, however, it did an amount of business out 

 of all proportion to its size, and most of that business was 

 directly related to the salt trade. As early as 1807, Gum- 

 ming wrote that it possessed a more enterprising appear- 

 ance than he had seen west of Pittsburgh.^ It was the 

 place of shipment for much of the salt, and as a conse- 

 quence, it soon became a center of keelboat traffic. The 

 building and outfitting of boats at its wharf, the making 

 of barrels, etc., were all subsidiary industries. The opening 

 of the United States Land Office in 1814 was a direct res- 

 ponse to the movement of population into the area, and in 

 the selection of Shawneetown in 1817 as the site for one 

 of the territorial banks, the revenue which would come to 

 it from the salt works was of considerable moment.^o 



The early history of the town of Equality was also in- 

 timately connected with the salt trade. The offices of the 

 salt works were located there ;^i it was the place of resi- 

 dence of many of the laborers, and, after the construction 

 of the locks and dams at Saline Mines and Island Ripple 

 which were necessary to make the Saline River navigable, 

 it became a second port for salt. Elizabethtown, founded in 

 Hardin County in 1808, was the logical outgrowth of a 

 ferry established where the trail which led from Nash- 

 ville, Tennessee, to the salt works crossed the Ohio River.i^ 



8. Wood, John, Tii'o Years in . . . .the English Prairie 1823, 



(Reprinted in Thwaites, E. IV. T., X.), p. 254. 



9. Gumming, Sketches of a Tour to the Western Country, 1807-9. 



(Reprinted in Thwaites, Early Western Travels, IV.), p. 271. 



10. See editorial from Western Intelligencer for Jan. 1, 1817. in Buck, 148-150. 



11. History of Gallatin, Saline, Hamilton, Franklin and Williamson Counties, Illi- 

 nois (Chicago, 1887), p. 122. 



12. Smith, George Washington, History of Southern Illinois (Chicago, N. Y-, 

 1912), I., 479. 



