The Legacy of Salt
The Power of Four Letters
Onondaga Lake, the place of the Hiawatha and Peacemaker's tree was the founding place of the Haudenosaunee. It was a place teeming with life: in, above and around the lake. The Onondagas lived on the hills overlooking the lake. They fished its waterways, hunted its shores, and managed the land. It was and is sacred to the Onondagas and the Confederacy. A four-letter word was "home".
The Salt Springs were known to the Haudenosaunee long before the Jesuits first arrived. The Jesuits recorded these springs, and it didn't take long for intrepid entrepreneurs to come to the region to exploit this resource. New York State realized the importance of this resource and managed the entire shoreline around Onondaga Lake, a way to increase profits from around the lake. Not only could money be made by making, selling, and taxing salt, but it could also make money from leasing the land. A word related, almost sacred to the colonists, is the four-letter word “cash”.
Salt Point was the original name of the settlement by the
lake that became the Village of Salina. Salina is a corruption of the Latin
word “sal” meaning salt. Later the Village of Salina merged with the Village of
Syracuse, incorporating into the City of Syracuse in 1848. On the western shores
of the lake, Geddes was named after James Geddes who opened a saltworks in what
is now Solvay. Another four-letter word is “city”. Salt, literally and
figuratively, was in the blood of the community.
Originally, salt water from the salt springs around was boiled down to extract the salt. Later, the Solar Salt method was used which harnessed the power of the sun and required far less resources to produce a greater quantity of salt. Eventually, water was pumped into the salt deposits south of Syracuse. The brine extracted was then gravity fed to solar salt fields around Onondaga Lake, including the Inner Harbor and Solvay Process. Here it would be pumped into flat beds and the sun would do the work of evaporating the water. Once it was dried it was moved to sheds, packed into barrels, and then shipped by canal boats or trains to market. It is inextricably tied to the prosperity of our region. The opportunity's four-letter word "work" was available for those seeking a better life.
Closely linked with work was another four-letter word in our area: “boom". With many ways to get goods to market, including the Erie Canal and Railroads, and immigrants coming in from all over the world looking for a better life, Syracuse was a great place to develop new ideas. Businesses came, things were
made, schools were built, jobs were created, employment almost a certainly,
innovation ran rampant...it was a good time to be "The Salt City".
But salt was a four-letter word, a bad one in many respects. First, it was the reason the Haudenosaunee were dispossessed from their lands. Greed left an ugly legacy. Second, brine salt from left the Tully Valley riddled with unstable underground caverns. Unintended consequences have lasting impacts into the future. Third, it heavily contributed to the pollution of the land that it came from. An irony of epic proportions. The reason they came was a reason for its demise, much like The Lorax. Salt was used in the Solvay Process. The sludge leftover from this process would go on to pollute Onondaga Lake and the land surrounding it. But also, the solar sheds themselves polluted the land. Brine and salt fell from the drying sheds over the years. All that salt into the soil rendered the land unfit for farming much like road salt use affects the land along the sides today. A four-letter word for this is “ruin”.
Much of the last 30 years has been formed by another
four-letter word, “redo”. In 1994, areas for clean up were officially
identified. Clean up in and around Onondaga Lake began in 2005. Slowly, but
steadily the lake and its surrounding habitat has been purposefully cleaned up
and restored. The eagles returned, marshlands restored, and trails laid that
help people understand what a treasure this lake is. Perfect, no. But it a
great start to caring for a lake that we as a community have been so careless
about.
While it brought great wealth to the region, it also brought
great problems, some of which we, over 200 years later are only beginning to
understand. History is never cut and dry, usually it falls somewhere in the
middle like the briny slurry that once was pumped to the solar sheds. The salt
and the water must be understood together. You can separate them, but the one
is the reason the other got there. Salt brought great wealth, but it also left
a swath of destruction. Recognizing both helps us understand how we got here.
Another four-letter word which carries us into the future is “hope”. We can do
better than the past. And remember, to understand Syracuse’s history and future, you have
to take what you have been told with a pinch of Salt.
https://www.onondaganation.org/history/
https://www.syracuse.com/living/2021/03/1792-intrepid-family-travels-170-miles-to-harvest-areas-white-gold.html
https://www.crookedlakereview.com/articles/101_135/119spring2001/119palmer.html
https://exploringupstate.com/story-syracuse-salt/
https://uncoveringnewyork.com/salt-museum-syracuse/
https://www.cnyhistory.org/2014/10/1353/
https://empirestateplaza.ny.gov/salt-production-syracuse
https://www.syracuse.com/news/2022/12/8-milestone-moments-in-onondaga-lake-cleanup.html
And two videos, one short, one a bit longer:
"The Salt City" produced by PBS
Onondaga Historical Association: https://www.cnyhistory.org/