University of Virginia Library

The first settlement in what is now Kanawha county, was made about twenty miles
above Charleston, at Kelly's creek, by a man after whom that creek was named. One
of the first settlers was Lewis Tachet, concerning whom, and the marauding parties of
Indians that harassed the early settlers, there are many traditions in the Kanawha valley.
He erected a fort at the mouth of Cole River, which was destroyed by a party of
Indians from the towns on the Scioto, in 1788, when his family were made prisoners. In
1798 there was a fort built immediately above the mouth of Elk, on the site of Charleston.
Among the earliest settlers were also the Morrisses from Culpeper, whose descendants,
mostly of the first respectability, now form perhaps nearly a tenth of the population
of the county. Joseph Carroll, the Clendenins, John Young, William Droddy,
Andrew Donnally, Michael See, and John Jones, were also very early settlers. For
many years they subsisted chiefly on buffalo, bear, elk, deer, and raccoon meat, and Indian
corn broken in stone mortars. In the Indian dialect, Kanawha signifies "river
of the woods." Pocatalico, a considerable tributary of that stream, signifies "plenty
of fat doe."

It is nearly 20 miles below the falls before the Kanawha valley widens into something
like a plain, and opens its beautiful vista to the eye. The mountains which
enclose it on either side become gradually depressed into hills; and, for the first time,
the dense, dark volumes of smoke which ascend from the salt-furnaces, announce the

busy and bustling scene which enlivens the highway to the village of Charleston.
What a scene of animation, indeed, contrasted with the deep solitudes from which the
traveller has but just emerged. Here he is feasted with a continued succession of
green meadows and cultivated fields, teeming with flocks and herds, and adorned by
commodious and even elegant mansions. The chimneys of the salt manufactories pour

View of the Salt-Works on the Kanawha.

forth, at short intervals of space, their curling masses of black vapor, while swarms of
laborers, and others connected with these establishments, are continually passing to and
fro, presenting a pleasing coup d'œil of incessant activity and industry. Nature, indeed,
seems to have been prodigal in her bounties to this interesting region. The contiguous
forests having been almost stripped to supply fuel to the salt-furnaces; the precious
mineral so necessary to human comfort, must have remained for ever useless but for
the discovery of inexhaustible beds of coal, so convenient of access as to make the cost
of procuring it scarcely worth considering. Sometimes, by suitable platforms and inclined
culverts, it is thrown from the mountain-side immediately to the door of the
manufactory, and when more remote from the place of consumption, it is transported
with equal ease, in wagons or cars, over rail-roads constructed for the purpose.

The whole product of the salt district is estimated at 1,200,000 bushels annually; and
this product must continue to swell with the increasing demand, and with the employment
of additional capital. It is a curious fact, and worthy of philosophical inquiry,
that while the salt water is obtained by boring at a depth of from 3 to 500 feet below
the bed of the Kanawha, it invariably rises to a level with the river. When the latter
is swollen by rains, or the redundant waters of its tributaries, the saline fluid, enclosed
in suitable gums on the shore, ascends like the mercury in its tube, and only falls when
the river is restored to its wonted channel. How this mysterious correspondence is produced,
is a problem which remains to be solved. Theories and speculation I have heard
on the subject, but none seem to me to be precisely consonant with the principles of
science.

Several vestiges remain on the Kanawha, which show that the Indians were acquainted
with and made use of the salt water. Remains of rude pottery are found in
abundance in the neighborhood, respecting which there is but little doubt that they are
the remains of vessels used by them for the evaporation of the salt water. That the
neighborhood of the Big Lick was their favorite resort, is evinced by the traces of their
idle hours to be found upon the neighboring rocks. A short distance below the Big

Lick was, some years since, a rock called the pictured or calico rock, on which the
natives had sculptured many rude figures of animals, birds, &c. This rock was finally
destroyed to make furnace chimneys. Another similar sculptured rock is, or was lately,
on the sw. side of the river, upon the summit of the nearest hill. The article annexed,
originally published in the Lexington Gazette in 1843, above the signature of H. R.,
describes a curiosity peculiarly interesting to the scientific, and promising to have a
wonderful influence upon the prosperity of this region.

The Gas Wells of Kanawha.—These wonderful wells have been so lately discovered,
that as yet only a brief and imperfect notice of them has appeared in the newspapers.
But they are a phenomenon so very curious and interesting, that a more complete
description will doubtless be acceptable to the public.

They are, in fact, a new thing under the sun; for in all the history of the world, it
does not appear that a fountain of strong brine was ever before known to be mingled
with a fountain of inflammable gas, sufficient to pump it out in a constant stream, and
then, by its combustion, to evaporate the whole into salt of the best quality.

We shall introduce our account of these wells by some remarks on the geological
structure of the country at the Kanawha salt-works, and on the manner in which the
salt water is obtained.

The country is mountainous, and the low grounds along the river are altogether alluvial,
the whole space, of about a mile in width, having been at some time the bed of the
river. The rocks are chiefly sandstone of various qualities, lying in beds, or strata, from
two inches to several feet in thickness. These strata are nearly horizontal, but dipping
a little, as in other parts of the country, towards the NW. At the salt-works they have
somehow been heaved up into a swell above the line of general direction, so as to raise
the deep strata nigher to the surface, and thus to bring those in which the salt water is
found within striking-distance.

Among the sand-rocks are found layers of slate and coal; this latter being also, by
the same upheaving, made more conveniently accessible than in most other parts of the
country.

The salt water is obtained by sinking a tight curb, or gum, at the edge of the river,
down about twenty feet, to the rock which underlies the river, and then boring into the
rock. At first the borings did not exceed two hundred feet in depth, but the upper
strata of water being exhausted, the wells were gradually deepened, the water of the
lower strata being generally stronger than the upper had ever been. Until last year,
(1842,) none of the wells exceeded six or seven hundred feet in depth. Mr. Tompkins,
an enterprising salt-maker, was the first to extend his borings to a thousand feet, or
more. His experiment was attended with a most unexpected result. He had somewhat
exceeded a thousand feet, when he struck a crevice in the rock, and forth gushed a
powerful stream of mingled gas and salt water. Generally, the salt water in the wells
was obtained in rock merely porous, and rose by hydrostatic pressure to the level of the
river. To obtain the strong water of the lower strata, unmixed with the weak water
above, it is the practice to insert a copper tube into the hole, making it fit tightly below
by means of wrapping on the outside, and attaching the upper end to the pump, by
which the water is drawn up to the furnaces on the river bank.

When Mr. Tompkins inserted his tube, the water gushed out so forcibly, that instead
of applying the pump, he only lengthened his tube above the well. The stream followed
it with undiminished velocity to his water-cistern, sixty feet above the level of the river.

In the next place, he inserted the end of the spout from which the water and gas
flowed, into a large hogshead, making a hole in the bottom to let out the water into the
cistern. Thus the light gas was caught in the upper part of the hogshead, and thence
conducted by pipes to the furnace, where it mingled with the blaze of the coal fire. It
so increased the heat as to make very little coal necessary; and if the furnace were
adapted to the economical use of this gaseous fuel, it would evaporate all the water of
the well, though the quantity is sufficient to make five hundred bushels of salt per day.
The same gentleman has since obtained a second gas-well, near the former, and in all
respects similar to it. Other proprietors of wells have also struck gas-fountains by deep
boring. In one of these wells the gas forces the water up violently, but by fits, the
gush continuing for some two or three hours, and then ceasing for about the same
length of time. In another of these wells there has been very recently struck, a gas-fountain
that acts with such prodigious violence as to make the tubing of the well in
the usual way impossible; when the copper tube was forced down through the rushing
stream of brine and gas, it was immediately flattened by the pressure; and the augerhole
must be enlarged to admit a tube sufficiently strong and capacious to give vent to

the stream without being crushed. In another well, a mile and a half from any gaswell,
a powerful stream of gas has been recently struck. It forces up the water with
great power; but, unfortunately for the proprietor, the water is too weak to be profitably
worked. It appears from this fact, that the gas is not inseparably connected with
strong brine. When struck before good salt water is reached, it will operate injuriously,
for no water obtained below it can rise at all, unless the pressure of the gas
be taken off by means of a strong tube extending below it.

Several wells have been bored to a depth equal to that of the gas-wells, without
striking the gas; the source of which seems to lie below, perhaps far below, the
depth of the wells. This light, elastic substance, wheresoever and howsoever generated,
naturally presses upwards for a vent, urging its way through every pore and crevice
of the superincumbent rocks; and the well-borer's auger must find it in one of the
narrow routes of its upward passage, or penetrate to its native coal-bed, before it will
burst forth by the artificial vent.

The opinion just intimated, that the gas originates in deep coal-beds, is founded
on the fact that it is the same sort of gas that constitutes the dangerous fire-damp
of coalpits, and the same that is manufactured out of bituminous coal for illuminating
our cities. It is a mixture of carbureted and sulphureted hydrogen. Philosophers
tell us that bituminous coal becomes anthracite by the conversion of its bitumen and
sulphur into this gas, and that water acts a necessary part in the process. Whether
the presence of salt water causes a more rapid evolution of the gas, the present
writer will not undertake to say; but, somehow, the quantity generated in the salt
region of Kanawha is most extraordinary.

It finds in this region innumerable small natural vents. It is seen in many places
bubbling up through the sand at the bottom of the river, and probably brings up
salt water with it, as in the gas-wells, but in small quantity. The celebrated burning
spring is the only one of its natural vents apparent on dry land. This stream of
gas, unaccompanied by water, has forced its way from the rocks below, through
seventy or eighty feet of alluvial ground, and within eighty yards of the river bank.
It is near this burning spring where the principal gas-wells have been found. But,
twenty-five years ago, or more, a gas-fountain was struck in a well two hundred
feet deep, near Charleston, seven miles below the Burning Spring. This blew up,
by fits, a jet of weak salt water twenty or thirty feet high. On a torch being applied
to it, one night, brilliant flames played and flashed about the watery column
in the most wonderful manner.

The Hon. Lewis Summers, (says a Kanawha paper,) was born of highly respectable
parentage in Fairfax co., Nov. 7th, 1778. He entered upon the duties of active life
during the presidency of the elder Adams. With the ardor which distinguished the
Virginia youth at that period, he used his influence to achieve the civic victory which
bore Mr. Jefferson into the presidential chair; and, through a long life, adhered to the
political principles of his younger days with an undeviating constancy. In 1808, he removed
to Gallipolis, Ohio, and served for several years in the senate and legislature of
that state. In 1814, he took up his permanent residence in this county. In 1817-18,
he served in the legislature of Virginia, and in Feb., 1819, he was chosen one of the
judges of the general court, and a judge of the Kanawha judicial circuit. For some
time he was a member of the board of public works of Va.; and in 1829 he was elected
a member of the convention to revise the constitution of the state.

In all these relations his own strong, original, and vigorous mind, has been indelibly
impressed upon the times and events with which he was connected. As a judge, he was
most able and faithful. As a statesman, his efforts were perseveringly directed to the
best interests of his country. Most of all that Virginia has accomplished in the great
work of internal improvement, has been ascribed to his exertions.

In that most remarkable assemblage, the state convention for the amendment of the
constitution of Va., which sat in 1829-30, the sterling, vigorous, and practical character
of Judge Summers' mind made him, before the close of its deliberations, one of the
most useful, if not one of the most conspicuous members of that illustrious body. As
the able champion of the true principles of elective government, he, in that assembly,
performed services and acquired a reputation which will ever cause his memory to be
cherished with warm and respectful affection by the people of western Virginia.

Mr. Summers died at the White Sulphur Springs, August 27th, 1843, after having
been for more than 24 years one of the judges of the general court of Va. He was
interred in Charleston. The present member of the national House of Representatives
from this district, the Hon. George W. Summers, is his son.