Beschreibung:

lot of 11. The following lots are associated with the Kanawha Salt industry over a period of more than 5 decades. Many items relate to Ruffner, Donnally, & Co., and most of these relate to the company store. While there have been some excellent scholarly analyses of the legal combinations of the salt makers, most recently by John Stealey III, relatively little is known of the "subsidiary" businesses associated with the Salines. A number of these other businesses were founded and operated by descendants of the founding salt makers, others were operated by the Salt Association itself. For example, William Dickinson Jr., son of William, Sr. of Dickinson & Shrewsbury, was one of the founders of the Kanawha Valley Bank. William III, grandson of William, Jr. organized the Quincy Coal Company. The Kanawha Salines were known by native peoples for centuries. The brine seep would be boiled to make salt, sometimes for trade. The location was noted by several captives who escaped, and in 1797, Elisha Brooks built the first commercial salt furnace in the region. Joseph Ruffner (1740-1802) purchased land in the area, and after his death, his sons, David and Joseph came to the area, drilled to better brine at 59 feet, and began the first industrial production of salt. A younger brother, Tobias, improved drilling techniques, taking a well to 410 feet. The Ruffners were such innovators in the industry, that when the first oil well was drilled in Titusville, PA, in 1859, it was Ruffner employees who were brought in to sink the shaft. By 1815, there were over 50 salt furnaces in the Kanawha valley. Two years later, David Ruffner switched from wood to coal to boil the brine, and within a few years, all had switched, spawning a whole new industry in western Virginia, King Coal, that would make West Virginia famous, and infamous, later. The Tompkins furnace at Cedar Grove began using natural gas, which seeped up with the brine in some areas, to not only fuel the evaporation pans, but to light the factory at night, and another industry was born. Brine was also the raw material of the chemical industry, and after the Civil War, Union Carbide formed here, initially to manufacture carbide for miners' lamps. The Kanawha salt manufacturers were so successful, that by about 1814, their supply exceeded demand, with a resulting depression in prices. They began exploring ways to control prices, forming a series of "combinations" that did not fully qualify as trusts in the modern sense, but they learned something from each attempt, and foreshadowed the post-Civil War trusts that would result in Federal legislation in the early 20th century. The salt manufacturers would form short-term agreements, attempting to control prices. Each combination had its problems. One would control price, but neglect to control production. Another agreement made the Salt Company wealthy, but left the producers with only minimal profits. At other times, the larger producers tied to "purge" the valley of lesser furnaces, in part to control production. Most of these agreements were made for only a few years, and none were renewed, in part because of changed conditions at the end of the term that were not foreseen when the agreement was drafted. So the Great Kanawha salt trust was really a series of gentlemen's agreements, sometimes joint stock companies. As Stealey has pointed out, these kinds of agreements were happening in other industries, but like the Salt Association, most went unnoticed because they did not result in major judicial and legislative "events." That is to say, these combinations represent the day to day (or year to year) attempts to control the industry and make a living that did not result in federal anti-trust legislation. The most modern of the joint stock ventures was the last, Ruffner, Donnally and Co., 1851-1856, but even this company could not solve all of the Kanawhans' problems. By the time this company's agreement expired, there were far larger problems