George Lennox Crookham was an early salt boiler at the Scioto Salt Licks in Jackson County, Ohio. He came to the area in 1799, having moved from Pennsylvania. Asa Lake, Crookham’s father-in-law, owned one of the salt-furnaces. His salt furnace was located “not far from where the bridge crosses Salt creek on the Chillicothe road”.
One of the earliest Euro-American settlements in the Northwest Territory was near Jackson, Ohio in 1795, due to its proximity to salt, a critical mineral used for preserving meat and seasoning food. This became the location of the Scioto Salt Works along the Salt Lick Creek. Prior to the Euro-American settlements, animals since pre-historic times and Native Americans established trails to the salt licks.
Euro-American Settlements
Throughout the last half of the 18th Century, there were multiple conflicts between European Colonist and Native American tribes over the lands in the Ohio River Valley. The Ohio River was a shifting border between the land taken by the colonist and the lands reserved for the Native Americans.
The Treaty of Greenville in 1795 redefined the border between the Native Americans and the Euro-Americans once again and the land north of the Ohio River now included settlements of Euro-Americans.
The period from the Treaty to 1803, when Ohio became a state, was called “Squatter Sovereignity” as individuals and families came to the salt licks. The land was reserved by the US Government, so it could not be purchased and there were no means to lease it.
The majority of the salt boilers of this period were forced to transients. They came in the summer, made salt for a few months, and when the waters rose in the fall, flooding the bottoms, they returned to their homes.
History of Jackson County, page 67
Boiling Salt
Early salt production used single kettles to produce salt. Later salt production included the creation of salt furnances that held 50-60 salt kettles. They would boil 3,600 gallons of brine water to produce 8 bushels of salt in a 24 hour period.
This picture is of a salt furnace in Saltville, VA during the Civil War
The salt industry required a great amount of wood, and the land was stripped of its forests in order to feed the demand of the salt furnaces.
By the 1820s, the salt furnaces were no longer profitable and Asa Lake moved his family to Hancock, Ohio. George Crookham stayed in Jackson, Ohio and was a teacher and geologist.
Sources
Early Settlers- The Salt Boilers | Jackson Area Chamber of Commerce
Page 67-68 details George Crookham’s life
Finding the Yellow Bricks 