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 Virginia800 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/
© 2006 By The Library of Virginia. All Rights Reserved.
Processed by: Sarah Nerney
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.
Index Terms
- Charlotte County (Va.). Circuit Court.
- 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.
- Charlotte County (Va.)--History.
- Local government records--Virginia--Charlotte County.
- Recipes--Virginia--Charlotte County.
- Registers (lists)--Virginia--Charlotte County.