HomeMy WebLinkAboutHuron Expositor, 2016-07-20, Page 44 Huron Expositor • Wednesday, July 20, 2016
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ikon Expositor
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Canada
The Seaforth Salt Wells
'le drilling for oil in
1866, Samuel Platt and
Peter McEwan tapped
into what geologists call the
Michigan Salt Basin. Created
about 300 million years ago, the
Michigan Basin is a huge deposit
of nearly pure salt stretching
from southern Ontario through
Michigan's Lower Peninsula.
The accidental discovery caused
a salt boom in the county as
every town and village
attempted a salt producing
operation. Seaforth at the
boom's peak, in the 1880's, had
three operating salt wells and
was second only to Goderich as
the area's main salt producer.
Seaforth grain merchant,
Peter McEwan who had been
involved in drilling the discovery
salt well near Goderich, turned
the town into a major salt pro-
ducing centre. In 1869, he began
drilling operations for Dr. Timo-
thy Coleman and his step -son
Dr. William Gouinlock east of
Main Street near the Grand
Trunk Railway. In June 1870,
when McEwan struck the salt
bed at about 1150; the 'Huron
Expositor's editor enthusiasti-
cally foresaw 'the time when
Seaforth will be the great salt
centre of the World.'
Coleman and Gouinlock's
operation was known as the Sea -
forth Salt Works. The salt works
was basically a well where water
was piped to the underground
salt bed. The water dissolved the
rock salt and turned it into a
brine which was pumped back
to the surface and boiled in salt
blocks in sheds where giant ket-
tles or pans boiled off the water
leaving salt crystals. The salt was
then packed into 280-300 pound
barrels for shipment.
Isabelle Campbell in 'The Story
of Seaforth' wrote that the Sea -
forth Salt Works was produced
300 barrels a day at the peak of
Huron History
David Yates
production. The 'Belden Atlas'
(1879) reported that it employed
as many as 60-75 men for ten
months of the year in a variety of
jobs ranging from salt rakers, fire-
men, woodmen and barrel coop-
ers. The 1887 Ontario Bureau of
Industry recorded the relatively
high wages for these trades.
Coopers made 5.5 cents per bar-
rel; woodmen made $1.00 per
day; rakers and an engineer
made $1.25 per day; and firemen
who stoked the fires earned the
princely daily sum of $1.50.
Drs. Coleman and Gouinlock,
the Salt Works owners, made
enough money that they gave up
medicine for salt manufacturing
in 1872. Dr. Coleman went on to
become Seaforth mayor in 1877-
78 and Colonel of the 33rd mili-
tia battalion. By 1886, Dr. Cole-
man's sons, Thomas and
Edward, ran the salt works as the
Coleman Well until 1903.
The Merchant Salt Company
was established in 1870 under the
management of Alexander Armit-
age with S.G. McCaughey serving
as president. It was located just
north of the Grand Trunk line a
near the Seaforth Salt Works. The
'Belden Atlas' reported that the
Merchant Salt Works employed
about 20-25 men the capacity to
produce 250-300 barrels of salt
per day. Campbell in 'The Story of
Seaforth' said that Joseph Kidd of
Dublin operated the works after
1880. The Coleman Brothers
bought out the Merchant Works
in the 1890s.
Like the Merchant Salt Com-
pany, the Eclipse Salt Works was
located just south of the rail line.
It, too, employed 20-25 men but
had greater production capacity.
In 1887, the Ontario Bureau of
Industries reported the well had
been 'put down' in 1872 and con-
sisted of two salt blocks which
had produced 11,000 barrels of
`common salt' for household use
and 4,000 barrels of 'land salt'
used in fertilizer, 'the average
selling price of both was about
.50 cents per barrel. Ominously,
the Bureau of Industries warned
that output at the Eclipse had
been reduced in the previous two
years 'owing to a defect in the
quality of the brine, so that its
running time is only about four
months in the year: William Gray;
Nicholas Young and Frank Spar -
ling owned the Eclipse Works
until the late 1880s.
Although not a well, the Ogilvie
& Company salt block was estab-
lished in 1885. It was a two man
salt manufactory housed in the
Ogilvie Flour Mill located just west
of Main Street. The brine was
piped from Eclipse Salt Works.
Despite its small size, the Ogilvie
works produced 2,025 barrels of
common salt and 670 tons [4,700
bbls.] of land salt in 1886.
In 1881, an article in the
`Huron Expositor' written at the
salt boom's peak reported that
'on getting off the train at the Sea -
forth railway station what
instantly arrests the attention of
the newcomer is the number of
derricks to be seen in the imme-
diate vicinity. These, he soon
learns indicate the location of the
far -framed salt works, which
form such a large and prominent
feature of the industrial interests
of Seaforth.' The `Expositor'
counted eight salt blocks in
operation. Each block consumed
'ten to twelve cords' of wood
every twenty-four hours.
The 'BeldenAtlas' in 1879 said
the salt industry gave `Seaforth an
impetus which formed the most
important epoch in the' town's his-
tory. Salt literally saved the town in
the Great Fire of 1876 when barrels
of salt were poured into burning
buildings to douse the flames. The
atlas also perceived that high rail
costs crippled the local salt indus-
trywhich limited its market to
southern Ontario.
By the 1880's, Huron County
forests had been cleared of tim-
ber to supply cheap fuel for the
salt blocks. In 1881, the 'Exposi-
tor' reported that 'in the early
days of salt manufacture, wood
could be procured in great
abundance and at a cheap rate
in the near neighbourhood of
the works; now, however, it has
to be drawn from a considerable
distance, and at a much higher
price: In 1886, the price per cord
was $2.00 and rising.
The scarcity of cheap fuel, ris-
ing transportation costs com-
bined with tariff free imports of
English salt doomed the local salt
industry. The Eclipse Works and
Ogilvie salt operations closed in
1889. The Merchant Salt Com-
pany shut down production
sometime in the 1890's. Accord-
ing to Isabelle Campbell, Clinton
saltmakers, Richard and John
Ransford purchased the Seaforth
Salt Works in 1903. When fire
destroyed it in August 1907, it
was the last functioning salt well
outside of Goderich. The follow-
ing year the property was sold to
the Robert Bell Engine and
Thresher Company. The Seaforth
salt boom may be forgotten but
the 'Belden Atlas' in 1879 accu-
rately understood salt's signifi-
cance when it called salt 'the
essence' of the town's early
development.
love watching baseball, especially if Toronto's playing
For Such A
Time As This
Pastor Laurie Morris
Ihave to admit it, I have
become a baseball fan. I'm
not sure how it happened
because when we lived in
Toronto for a short while I
attended a couple of games at the
old Exhibition Stadium, but I
wasn't paying a whole lot of
attention to the Blue Jays at the
lime.
But when we lived in Elliot
Lake I began to watch them a
little more, and on one trip down
to the Boston area for a wedding,
some close friends took us to a
game at Fenway Park between
the Jays and Red Sox, and I think
from that time on I was hooked.
For several years we would
make a pilgrimage to attend a
game with them at Fenway,
which we always lost. It wasn't
until they finally attended a game
at the Skydome with us that we
actually won one of those games
we attended. It was shortly after
that that the strike took place and
for a while we lost some interest.
CONTINUED > PAGE 5
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