The Turnbo Manuscripts
by Silas Claiborne Turnbo
1844-1925
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HOW SUFFICIENT SALT FOR FAMILY USE WAS SAVED THROUGHOUT
THE CIVIL WAR
By S. C. Turnbo
Mr. Billy Parker who is one of Marion County, Arkansas earliest settlers and who settled on Jimmies Creek in 1852 in speaking of war times said that when the war was brewing in the latter part of the year 1860 he well ]mew that if it commenced that it would be a long struggle and that everything would become exceedingly scarce and know that salt was a necessary article to have he set about to undertake to save enough salt to last through until peace was made. And with this end in view he taken his ox wagon and went to a distant town and bought two sacks of salt and put them in the wagon box and covered them up with old garment he had taken along for the purpose and hauled them home and concealed the sacks in the smoke house until he had an oppertunity to empty the salt into a big old red elm gum that had been in the smoke house for years and covered it over with old dirty rags, old worn out shoes and pieces of gourds. No one never molested the gum. Robbers who visited the house did not have the least idea that anything useful was hid in the gum or they would have took the salt out. And thus by these means we had plenty of salt for once until peace was made but we used it secretly to keep down suspicion that we had salt, and we also said nothing about it.
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