222 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



vania with their large industrial centers. The chemical industries 

 in this section afford one of the principal outlets for the product. 



Historical. Salt making in New York was carried on in a small 

 way during the colonial days. The earliest mention of the occurrence 

 of salt within the present state limits is found in the Jesuit " Rela- 

 tions." Some missionaries from the Canadian settlements along 

 the St Lawrence river visited the neighborhood of Onondaga lake 

 in the middle of the 17th century and reported upon the remarkable 

 saline springs there which had long been known to the Indians. 

 Both the natives and occasional traders collected salt from this 

 source before the Revolution had opened the lands to white settlers. 



The present industry may be said to have been started in 1788 

 when the State secured title to the lands on the shores of Onondaga 

 lake " for the common benefit of the people of the State of New 

 York and the Onondagas for the purpose of making salt." In the 

 same year, or according to some authorities, in 1789 salt manu- 

 facture was begun at Salt Point (later the village of Salina) in an 

 open kettle, with the use of brine dipped from a shallow opening 

 dug in the ground. This primitive undertaking was started by 

 Asa Danforth and Comfort Tyler. In 1793 a regtdar salt works, 

 consisting of an arch with four potash kettles, was built by William 

 Van Vleck and Moses DeWitt. The State assumed control of the 

 salt industry in 1797 when the Legislature passed laws regulating 

 the emplo3rment of brines on the Onondaga Salt Springs Reservation 

 and appointed a superintendent to take charge on the ground. The 

 brine was pimiped by central stations and supplied to the individual 

 evaporating plants who were taxed upon the output to repay the 

 cost of ptmiping and supervision. The State' did not relinquish 

 its control of the natural brines until 1908 by which time the pro- 

 duction in the Onondaga reservation had declined to small pro- 

 portions by reason of competition with the salt made from the 

 richer artificial brines secured in the rock salt district. Solar evapo- 

 ration in the vicinity of Syracuse began in 1821; it rapidly became 

 established in favor and for several years it has been the sole method 

 of making salt from the natural brines. 



The occurrence of rock salt in New York was not established 

 until 1 86 5 when the first discovery was reported in the vicinity of 

 Vincent, Ontario county. No use was made of the deposit, and it 

 was only in 1881 that the rock salt beds began to be exploited. An 

 evaporating works was put in operation in that year near Wyoming, 

 Wyoming county, deriving its supply of brine from the bed of rock 

 salt which had been found in the course of " wildcat " oil explorations 



