Sun Oct 3: Bonus Day in Onondaga

 In which we learn more about Salt and Salt production than might be strictly necessary ...

It was a rainy day and most of the morning we stayed on the boat to wait out the stormy weather.  It is always fun to be on the boat in the rain.  The pitter-patter of rain on the roof is nice to listen to and since it is raining one feels entitled to read and drink a second cup of coffee.  However, today we ventured out to get that second cup:

In the afternoon we went to the Salt Museum that is just a short walk from the marina.  This whole Syracuse area was a major center for salt production, due to the underground brine deposits.  The Native Americans were aware of the brine wells and called it “devil water”.  In the late 1700’s European’s were exploring the area and the local natives showed them the brine wells.  Skip forward to about the 1820’s and settlers began the salt industry by boiling brine to make salt.  

The small salt museum is housed in an old “Block House” , which is a big building filled with a long oven for boiling salt water in large copper kettles to make salt.  According to exhibits in the museum, Salt was made for many years using the “active heat” method - boiling water; first wood from local trees and then once the railroad came to town, with coal.   As wood got scarce and coal got expensive the salt production moved to a “passive heat” model using solar heat to slowly evaporate water and leave salt (the most common method used to day to make table salt).  It was a nice display and once again we learned about something important to the early years of the US and something that previously we knew nothing about.  Of course, this ties right into the Erie and Oswego canals because, guess how they shipped all the salt?  On the canals of course!   Another interesting fact is that during the civil war the salt production was so important that the whole area was controlled by the US Army - one important advantage the North had over the South was salt production.  Salt production continued until the 1940’s when cheaper salt from other parts of the country put the last salt producers out of business.

 

 (As an aside - when we were cruising through salt water, every day the sides of the boat would be covered in dried salt.  Rick thought he might be able to scrape it off and market Rickies Icky Salt...  What do you think?!)

Rain continued for most of the day and we went back to the boat for a great dinner and another episode of Ted Lasso!