Salt was far more than a seasoning in 18th Century America. Foods, particularly meats, were salted and dried in order to preserve them. A winter-store of food was essential to surviving the long winter and large quantities of salt were essential to creating a winter-store. Soldiers, unable to produce their own food, were particularly dependent upon salt-dried food. Prior to the American Revolution, Americans imported nearly all of their salt from England.

In early 1776, a British naval blockade choked off imported salt and Americans experienced a severe salt shortage. For example, in Philadelphia, the price of salt jumped from £2 to £7 a bushel as the boycott of British goods became complete. The Reverend Muhlenberg noted "the people push and jostle each other whenever there is a small quantity of salt to be found."

In 1776, American leaders started actively promoting domestic salt making. The Continental Congress passed a resolve encouraging American salt production and one of its delegates authored a booklet on salt-making. Shallow bays, from which salt water could be trapped in drying pans at high tide, were ideal for salt-making. The Monmouth shore was dotted with such bays.   

On May 28, the New Jersey Provincial Congress passed an act to encourage salt production, putting "a bounty of 1/3 a dollar per bushel upon all such salt... manufactured within one year of the date hereof.” It also granted militia-service exemptions to salt work owners with "500 gallons of boiling vessels" or more. But it was neighboring Pennsylvania that was first to establish a large salt making project on the Jersey shore. 

Establishing the Pennsylvania Salt Works

On May 31, the Pennsylvania Convention (its new legislature), considered a proposal from an entrepreneur, Thomas Savadge, to establish a large salt works on the Jersey shore. On June 12, the committee charged with considering the proposal reported favorably:

The Committee appointed to take into consideration the proposals of Thomas Savadge regarding the making of salt, &c., reported that they had examined the plan of said Thomas Savadge for making annual on the sea-coast about sixty thousand bushels, and are of the opinion that the said works may be completed in a short time, at an expense to exceeding two thousand five hundred pounds.

The committee recommended that the project go forward but noted that private investment would be needed to supplement any public investment. On July 19, the Pennsylvania Council of Safety provided Savadge with a L400 advance to begin work. Interestingly, Savadge was already in New Jersey, and he had already spent more than his advance on the purchase of land near Toms River. Historian Harry Weiss wrote that the Pennsylvania Salt Works were "located at Coates Point on the north bank of the Toms River about one-half mile from its junction with Barnegat Bay, and six hundred yards inland." 

Savadge proceeded to purchase the materials necessary to build a large salt works. He hired laborers and purchased supplies on credit with little regard for his limited funding. In October, he optimistically reported on his progress: “I have nearly completed a boiling house… two drying houses, [and] a mill for the pump." But he also reported a litany of problems that included a lack of funds, laborers leaving every second month for militia service, and the non-delivery of purchased boiling pans. 

Savadge also noted that the salt works were vulnerable to British attack. The Pennsylvania Council of Safety resolved to advance Savadge more funds and protect the salt works: 

That an officer and twenty-five men be sent to the Salt Works at Toms River as a guard, and twenty-five spare muskets and two howitzers, and sufficient amount of ammunition to defend in case of attack.

The Council of Safety also wrote the Continental Congress to ask the government of New Jersey to help protect the Pennsylvania Salt Works.

Dr. Samuel Bard’s and Other Monmouth County Salt Works

By August, New Jersey was actively promoting its own salt works.  The New Jersey Assembly rolled out a plan to support a salt works owned by Dr. Samuel Bard of Shrewsbury. Bard would receive a L500 loan "for the term of two years without interest." The legislature further agreed to buy all salt produced at $1 a bushel. And the legislature agreed that "if any of the works shall be destroyed by the enemy" the legislature would reimburse Bard for half of his losses. Finally, it offered ten militia exemptions for Bard’s laborers. The plan was approved on September 11.

Later that month, the New Jersey Assembly considered the salt works project of William Parker (also of Shrewsbury) and his partners. They requested a loan from the state “on easy terms.” On October 5, the legislature passed "An Act to Encourage William Parker & Others to Erect Salt Works." Loan terms included a provision that the loan would convert to a grant if the salt works were producing three bushels of salt a day within 90 days, and 50% loan forgiveness if the salt works were destroyed by the enemy. Interestingly, Bard and Parker would flirt with disaffection throughout the war, and one of Parker’s partners, Richard Lippincott, would become one of New Jersey’s most notorious Loyalists. 

Over the next year, several other saltworks started along the present-day Monmouth and Ocean County shore. According to one study that attempted to locate them all, there were nine salt works in total: 

1. The mouth of the Shrewsbury River (The River Works, likely owner Samuel Bard); 

2. Shark River (name unknown, likely owner William Parker); 

3. Brielle bank of the Manasquan River (Union Salt Works, co-owned by David Forman); 

4. Squan Inlet (name and owner unknown); 

5. Mosquito Cove, north of Toms River (Randolph's Works owned by James Randolph); 

6. Toms River (Pennsylvania Salt Works managed by Thomas Savadge); 

7. Forked River (name unknown, owned by Samuel Brown); 

8. Waretown (name unknown, owned by Trevor Newland); and 

9. Tuckerton (name and owner unknown). 

There were also ten other salt works south of Monmouth County along the New Jersey shore.

The two largest salt works, the Pennsylvania Salt Works and the Union Salt Works, would be marred by scandal and destruction from Loyalist attacks. But a number of the smaller salt works steadily produced small quantities of salt. 

Related Historic Site: Historic Salt Park (Saltville, VA)

Sources:  Arthur Pierce, Smugglers' Woods, (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1960) p 225-6; The Library Company, Pennsylvania Ledger, vol. 1, Jan. 1775-Nov. 1776; Peter Force, American Archives,  v6: 856; K. Braddock-Rogers, "Salt Works of New Jersey during the American Revolution," Journal of Chemical Education, vol. 15 (December, 1938), p 586;

Samuel Hazard, Pennsylvania Archives (Harrisburg: State of Pennsylvania, 1902) First Series, vol. 4, p 771; Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives of the Colony of Pennsylvania, 1767-1776 (Philadelphia: Henry Miller, 1776) p735, 739; Peter Force, American Archives,  v1:1297; Library of Congress, J. Turner Coll., Folder - John Hart; The Library Company, New Jersey Votes of the Assembly, September 2, 1776, p 3.; Arthur Pierce, Smugglers' Woods, (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1960) p 235; Samuel Hazard, Pennsylvania Archives (Harrisburg: State of Pennsylvania, 1902) First Series, vol. 5, p 55; Weiss cited in Thomas Foster, The Coastal War in Monmouth County, 1778-1782 (MA Thesis, U. of Pennsylvania, 1961), p13-14; Edwin Salter, History of Monmouth and Ocean Counties (Bayonne, NJ: E. Gardner and Sons, 1890) p 419; Peter Force, American Archives, 4th series, vol. 3, pp. 182-183; Journals of the Continental Congress, p925-6 (www.ammem/amlaw/lwdg.html); Library of Congress, Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 6, p 925; C.C. Smith, "Scarcity of Salt During the Revolutionary War", Proceedings of the Mass. Hist. Soc., 1856-7, vol. 15, p224; New Jersey State Archives, Bureau of Archives and History, Manuscript Collection, Manuscripts, box 14, #23; The Library Company, New Jersey Votes of the Assembly, September 11, 1776, p 8; Journals of the Legislative Council of New Jersey (Isaac Collins: State of New Jersey, 1776) p29-30; The Library Company, New Jersey

Votes of the Assembly, September 20, 1776, p 17 and September 27, p 23; The Library Company, Acts of the General Assembly of New Jersey, pp. 6-7, 47; The Library Company, New Jersey Votes of the Assembly, November 22, 1776, p 42; Carl Prince, Papers of William Livingston (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1987) vol. 1, p 173, 182-4; J. Reuben Clark, Emergency Legislation Passed Before December 1917 Dealing with the Control and Taking of Private Property for the Public Use and Benefit to which is Added a Reprint of Analagous Legislation Since 1775 (Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1918), p501-2; K. Braddock-Rogers, "Salt Works of New Jersey during the American Revolution," Journal of Chemical Education, vol. 15 (December, 1938), p 590. Harold Wilson, The Jersey Shore: A Social and Economic History of the Counties of Atlantic, Cape May, Monmouth, and Ocean (Lewis, 1953) vol. 1, p 171; K. Braddock-Rogers, "Salt Works of New Jersey during the American Revolution," Journal of Chemical Education, vol. 15 (December, 1938), pp. 586-7, 591; Journals of the Continental Congress, American Memory, Library of Congress, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/hlawquery.html; Arthur Pierce, Smugglers' Woods, (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1960) p 232.