A Guide to the Charlotte County (Va.) Salt Distribution Register, 1862-1864 Charlotte County (Va.) Salt Distribution Register, 1862-1864 1095530

A Guide to the Charlotte County (Va.) Salt Distribution Register, 1862-1864

A Collection in
the Library of Virginia
Barcode number 1095530

Library of Virginia

The Library of Virginia
800 East Broad Street
Richmond, Virginia 23219-8000
USA
Phone: (804) 692-3888 (Archives Reference)
Fax: (804) 692-3556 (Archives Reference)
Email: archdesk@lva.virginia.gov(Archives)
URL: http://www.lva.virginia.gov/

Processed by: Sarah Nerney

Repository

The Library of Virginia

Barcode number

1095530

Title

Charlotte County (Va.) Salt Distribution Register, 1862-1864

Physical Characteristics

1 vol. (200 p.)

Creator

Charlotte County (Va.) Circuit Court.

Location

Library of Virginia

Language

English

Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

Collection is open to research.

Use Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Preferred Citation

Charlotte County (Va.) Salt Distribution Register, 1862-1864. Local government records collection, Charlotte County Court Records. The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Va. 23219.

Acquisition Information

This item came to the Library of Virginia in shipments of court papers from Charlotte County.

Historical Information

Charlotte County was formed from Lunenburg County in 1764.

During the Civil War in Virginia, large demands for salt from the military, the government, and the citizenry meant that salt had to be rationed. The General Assembly passed several laws beginning on 9 March 1862 to facilitate this rationing to the people of Virginia. The ration was based on an allowance of twenty pounds of salt per person per year (see Acts of the Assembly, 1 October 1862). A commissioner of the salt controlled the distribution at the county level once a county was delivered its allotment. The commissioner was appointed by the county court.

Scope and Content

Charlotte County (Va.) Salt Distribution Register, 1862-1864, is arranged into roughly three sections. The first section is arranged alphabetically by surname and lists the number of people in that family, the first and last name of the person buying the salt, the number of pounds purchased, and the amount paid with columns for dollars and cents. The columns for pounds purchased and amount paid are arranged by month. The second section is arranged alphabetically by surname and lists the same information although there is only one entry for each person listed. The third section is not in any kind of discernable order but seems to also list either pounds or sacks of salt purchased and the amount paid. The month and year October 1863 is written at the top of some pages in the third section. About three quarters of the salt register is paginated by folio. It begins pagination over at page 1 following the p. 1-54 of the home remedies, etc. that precedes the salt register. There is no index.

There are seven loose items (1862, 1864, n.d.) inserted into the salt register that are communications about pick up, delivery, and payment for salt.

The first fifty four pages of the Salt Distribution Register are composed of various recipes, home remedies, household hints, and building tips from an earlier unknown date. The recipes include such things as how to make peppermint essence and lemon syrup; how to prepare cold potatoes; how to make spruce, porter, or ginger beer; several types of wine recipes; how to produce a good strong vinegar and then flavor it with raspberry; stewed fruit and baked tomatoes; and various baking recipes for ginger bread, soda bread, and tea cake. The home remedies suggest cures both for human and animal afflictions. Examples of home remedies listed for humans include scrofula, sore eyes, snake bite, piles, dyspepsia, dropsey, lockjaw, warts, quinsy, rheumatism, ringworm and other worms, blistered feet, consumption, stomach cramps, fevers, diarrhea, epileptic fits, cures for cancer and burns, and how to prepare various medicines such as laudanum, paragoric, opodeldock, antimonial wine, and Turlington's Balsam. Remedies for animals consist largely of cures for equine diseases or problems such as bots or grubs, colic, distemper, spavin, and cough but a specific treatment is also suggested to cure mange in hogs. Household hints are varied and include tips on how to make cloth and leather waterproof, how to cut glass, various suggestions for cleaning and dying cloth, how to kill flies and bedbugs, a suggestion for hair treatment that is superior to macassa oil, how to improve candles, and how to make a poison of arsenic. Some of the household hints are concerned with building construction or repair such as how to construct a building of unburnt bricks and how to make various glues, varnishes, and cements. Another subset of the household hints concern themselves with gardening and agricultural subjects such as how to winter bees, how to successfully grow mulberry trees, how to grow carrots, how to make compost, and how to protect peach trees from worms. There is no index to the home remedies and recipes section but an itemized list is provided within this finding aid.

A gift to the Library of Virginia's Adopt Virginia's History program from Cynthia V. Bailey has funded the conservation and repair of this register.

List of Recipes, Home Remedies, and Household Hints

For the quinsy, p. 1

For a wound from a rusty nail, p. 1

For the rheumatism, p. 2

To kill flies and bedbugs, p. 2

For the ven...l, p. 3

Spruce beer, p. 3

For making leather varnish, p. 4

For worms in children, p. 4

To make currant wine, p. 5-6

Receipt for wet feet, p. 6

To make very strong vinegar, p. 6

Blistered feet [how to treat], p. 6

For making copel varnish, p. 7

Horses to prevent botts, p. 7

Tomatoe catsup, p. 8

Mulberry trees [how to raise successfully], p. 8

Molasses, p. 8

To make domestic wine, p. 9

To make soap, p. 9

Currant leaf tea, p. 9

New England rum is better for the hair than Macassa oil...., p. 9

Liverwort tea a cure for consumption, p. 10

Cure for the cancer, p. 10

Cramp in stomac or collic, p. 10

To cure a cancer, p. 11

Horse Chestnut or Buck Eye juice [for washing linens or cure for piles], p. 11

Dyspepsia, p. 12

Improvement of candles, p. 12

Botts in horses, p. 12

Piles to cure, p. 12

Beer cold to make, p. 12

A new cheap paint, p. 12-13

Carrots [how to raise], p. 13

Plugging trees, p. 13

Paragoric, p. 13

Apple pudding, p. 14

Mange in hogs, p. 14

Cure of the bots or grubs in horses, p. 14

To prepare cold potatoes, p. 14

Gum elastic varnish, p. 15

Impervable paste or gum elastic paste, p. 15-16

To destroy bed bugs, p. 16

Fever and ague to cure, p. 16

Algiers cement, p. 17

Paint, p. 17

To make cup cake, p. 17

For scalds and burns, p. 17

Poison of arsenic, p. 17

Bitters--tonick and cathartic, p. 18

Cholic in horses to cure, p. 18

Grubbs in horses to destroy, p. 18

Soap, p. 18

Preservation of tomatoes, p. 18-19

Apple butter, p. 19

Wintering bees, p. 20-21

Baked tomatoes, p. 21

White swilling, p. 21

Tar syrup, p. 21

Cough in horses to cure, p. 21

Wood polishing, p. 22

Bed bugs to kill, p. 23

Diarrhaea to cure, p. 23

Rheumatism remedy for, p. 23

Protection of peach trees against worms, p. 24

Cure for epilectic fits, p. 24

Burns remedy for, p. 24

Spleen to cure, p. 25

Spavin, p. 25

Snake or spider bite, p. 25

Laudanum to make, p. 25

Paragoric to make, p. 25

[Snake bite], p. 25

Distemper in horses to cure, p. 26

Vinegar to make, p. 26

Beer small to make, p. 26

Opodeldock to make, p. 26

Paste to make, p. 26

Castings cracked to stop, p. 27

Peppermint essence to make, p. 27

Sore eyes remedy for, p. 27

Scroffula to cure, p. 27

Worms, p. 27

Warts to cure, p. 27

Bleeding at the lungs, p. 28

Ringworm to cure, p. 28

Antimonial wine to make, p. 28

Turlingtons Balsam, p. 28

Brandy peaches or secure to make, p. 28

Wine to make, p. 29

Antimonial wine, p. 29

Currant wine to make, p. 29

Dropsey, p. 29-30

Indelible ink to make, p. 30

Size for indelible ink, p. 30

Lock jaw, p. 30

Lavender spirits to make, p. 30

Paint to make, p. 31

Rheumatism, p. 31

Frost bites, p. 31

Bitters to make, p. 31

Blacking liquid to make, p. 31

Paint for harths etc., p. 32

Ringworm to cure, p. 32

Vinegar raspberry or blackberry to mak,e p. 32

Burn or scald, p. 32

Snake or spider bite and bee sting to cure, p. 32

Cosbies bitters to make, p. 33

Cheap beer to make, p. 33

Raisins to make, p. 33

The making of Dibs, p. 33

Scratches in horses to cure, p. 33

Wine of fox grapes to make, p. 34

Bounce--strawberry, black, goose, rasp or any berry to make, p. 34

Paint to mix, p. 34

Porter beer to make, p. 35

Glass to cut, p. 35

Cloth waterproof to make, p. 35

Warts to cure, p. 35

Maps to paste, p. 35

Nankeen colour to dye, p. 35

Compost, p. 36-37

Rice cement, p. 38

Tea cake, p. 38

Ginger bread to make, p. 39

Whitewash durable to make, p. 39

An ox's gall will set any color in silk, cotton or woollen...., p. 39

Sal volatile or hartshorn will restore any colors taken out by acid...., p. 39

A brilliant stucco whitewash to make, p. 40-41

Lemon syrup, p. 41

Court plaster, p. 41

Raw cotton and oil are the best things for a burn...., p. 41

Elixer proprietatis, p. 42

Pickle vinegar, p. 42

Glue, p. 42

A waterproof glue, p. 43

Waterproof glue, p. 43

A glue that will hold against fire or water, p. 43

Warts, p. 44

Charcoal [applied to poor lands to improve], p. 44

Ginger beer, p. 44

French cement, p. 44

To tan lamb and other skins with the hair on, p. 45

Soda bread, p. 45

Good bread, p. 46

A strong cement for wood, glass etc., p. 47

Bed bugs to destroy, p. 47

Building houses with unburnt brick, p. 48-49

Lime paint, p. 49

Cement for the roofs of houses, p. 50

A good drink for the harvest, p. 50

For making corn beer, p. 51

Cold beer to make, p. 51

Preparation for making boats and shoes waterproof, p. 51

Making vinegar, p. 52

How to pass through smoke, p. 52

Bite of a rattlesnake or any other snake, spider, p. 52

Soda water to make, p. 53

Sausage meat, p. 53

Gas tar is destructive to insects...., p. 53

Cheap soap to make, p. 54

To stew fruit, apples or peaches, p. 54

Paste to make, p. 54

Index Terms

Corporate Names:

Charlotte County (Va.). Circuit Court.

Subjects:

Building--Virginia--Charlotte County.
Buildings--Repair and reconstruction--Virginia--Charlotte County.
Gardening--Virginia--Charlotte County.
Rationing--Virginia--Charlotte County.
Recipes--Virginia--Charlotte County.
Salt--Virginia--Charlotte County.
Traditional farming--Virginia--Charlotte County.
Traditional medicine--Virginia--Charlotte County.
Traditional veterinary medicine--Virginia--Charlotte County.
Virginia--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Economic aspects.
Workshop recipes--Virginia--Charlotte County.

Geographical Names:

Charlotte County (Va.)--History.

Genre and Form Terms:

Local government records--Virginia--Charlotte County.
Recipes--Virginia--Charlotte County.
Registers (lists)--Virginia--Charlotte County.

Significant Places Associated With the Collection

Charlotte County (Va.)--History.