New Data on Jackson County, Alabama, Saltpeter workers

B39

NEW DATA ON JACKSON COUNTY, ALABAMA , SALTPETER WORKERS
Marion 0. Smith

On pages 11-13 and 33 of my booklet, Saltpeter Mining and the Civil War in Jack~

son County, Alabama (Vol. 24, Journal of Spelean History, April-June, 1990), the

activities of Lewis E. Metts (c1828-1875) and Joseph Calvin Thornton (1832-1908)
were discussed. Metts was a nitre contractor in partnership with a man named Sanders,
and Thornton was an overseer for contractors Matthews and English at "Matthews Cave,"
which I surmised was either the Pseudo Lava Caves (A and B) or Steele Saltpeter Cave.
During a Fall, 1990, perusal of Confederate pensions at the Alabama Archives I acci-
dently found the application of Zachariah Summers, which slightly enhances our knowl-
edge of Metts and Thornton and corrects the name of Contractor Matthew's partner.
Summers outlined his wartime activities in a July 9, 1914, affidavit:
During the early part of the war affiant was chiefly employed

as a track hand on the N. C. & St. L. Ry. [then the Nashville and

Chattanooga Railroad | and in farming and continued in such service

until the latter part of 1862 or early part of 1863. He then en-

gaged with Louis E. Metz in the manufacture of saltpetre for the

Confederacy[.| In March 1863 he was engaged with Calloway Thornton

and Elijah Inglis in the manufacture of saltpeter. .. . He con-

tinued in said service until the Yankees took possession of this

country in 1863. After that he kept out of the way of the Yankees
as best he could and was never captured,

As evidence, Summers enclosed with his goo acarida a March 12, 1863, certificate
signed by William Gabbett, superintendent of Nitre District No. 9, which exempted
him “from removal as a conscript, by reason of being employed in the C. S. nitre
Contractor works at Matthews Cave in Jackson Co Ala."'1

Zachariah Summers (1836-1919) lived in the vicinity of Rash in Big Coon Valley,
and according to a grandson, Clint Wynne (b. ca. 1903), still possessed a saltpeter
kettle in the early 1900s. Elijah Renshaw Inglis (September 5, 1826~-June 14, 1895)

+

was a farmer who lived "near Fackler" and at one time was the county commissioner.

He is buried in the Inglis Cemetery in the Carns Community. 2

NOTES

“confederate Pension Applications, Zachariah Summers, Alabama Archives, Montgomery.
Letter from F, Marion Loyd, Bridgeport, Alabama, November 27, 1990: Pauline Jones

Gandrud, comp., Alavama Records (245 vols., Easley, S. C.: Southern Historical Press,
1981), Vol. 144:46; Scottsboro Citizen, June 20, 1895.