Times of the Islands Summer 2022

astrolabe newsletter of the Turks & Caicos National Museum
This postcard pictures a steam-powered salt grinding facility on Grand Turk. There would eventually be three such grinding operations on
Grand Turk Island and two at Cockburn Harbour.
inches a year, but when rainfall was significantly above
normal, as it was from time to time, vast quantities of salt
stored at outdoor deposits wasted away and salt forming
in the ponds was ruined. For example, in 1904 and 1905
annual rainfall exceeded 40 inches.
The best way to prevent salt loss from rain and hurricanes
was to store it in a salt house or shed. Though
expensive to build, by 1897 there were 8 such sheds on
Grand Turk, 2 at Cockburn Harbour and 15 on Salt Cay.
In total, these 25 salt sheds could store 542,000 bushels
of salt.
Josiah Frith and Jeremiah Murphy imported the first
steam engine for grinding salt to South Caicos in 1874.
The following year Grand Turk was also grinding salt
using steam power. A single steam-powered salt grinding
operation could process 10,000 bushels of salt a
week. Ground salt, called fish or fishery salt, commanded
a higher price than coarse salt because it was in great
demand by the fishing industry in the New England
States and Nova Scotia. For example, in 1906 coarse
salt brought 6 cents a bushel while fishery salt sold for
7.5 cents a bushel. The Harriott brothers introduced an
Aermotor (windmill) powered grinding machine to Salt
Cay in 1894.
Coarse and fishery salt was shipped in bulk to the
New England States and Nova Scotia. A few thousand
barrels of salt were sent to Jamaica and the Dominican
Republic each year. A barrel held about 3 bushels of
ground salt and weighed 280 pounds. (A bushel of salt
was equal to 1.13 American bushels.) A few barrels of
ground salt for domestic use may have been shipped to
the United States as well.
Salt was bagged next to the salt storage deposits
or storage sheds just before it was carried to lighters
(small sailing craft) waiting at the beach for delivery to a
freighter anchored off-shore.
A 1/2 bushel bag of salt weighed about 40 pounds.
(A 1/2 bushel bag of ground or fishery salt weighed 45
pounds.) Men typically carried 5 bags of salt at a time,
weighing 200 pounds or more, from the salt deposit to
lighters at the beach.
The operation of bagging salt, carrying the bags to a
lighter and operating the lighter required about 22 people—10
men including the captain aboard the lighter, 6
Times of the Islands Summer 2022 69