about

In the late 1790’s the place which became Jackson, Ohio, contained salt licks, where a creek flowed over salt–bearing rock and became brine. Native Americans and later pioneering white men boiled the brine down into valuable salt. As a result of the Battle of Fallen Timbers (1794) and the Treaty of Greenville (1795), Native Americans abandoned control of southeast Ohio, and white people moved in.

The first permanent white settler in Jackson County was your author’s ancestor John Martin, who arrived in 1796. He took up salt manufacture for a time, and became known as “Saltboiler John”. The saltboiling industry did not last beyond a few decades, and Saltboiler John himself soon moved to a farm outside the settlement. For a while, though, a few dozen saltboiling furnaces prospered, and the settlement became a rollicking frontier town known for drunkenness and misbehavior. For a short time the settlement was named “Purgatory”. About two hundred years ago, the county and the county seat were renamed in honor of Andrew Jackson. Your author chose to name his hobby web site to remember his ancestor, the Saltboiler.  

The City of Jackson, Ohio, population about 6,700, is the county seat of Jackson County, in southeast Ohio about 75 miles southeast of Columbus. Jackson is a typical small friendly Midwestern town. It has an active arts group and two local history organizations. The high school seems to care more about football than academics, which is typical for the area. After high school, many students attend the University of Rio Grande, a small college twenty miles south, or Ohio University, a larger school thirty miles east, in Athens, Ohio, or The Ohio State University, in Columbus. Over the years, lots of Welsh folk have moved into the county, especially in the southern part.

Residents have made their livings in the past in farming, coal mining, iron manufacture, and uranium processing. Nowadays most jobs are found in two frozen food plants in the county, and in various occupations related to medical care. Jackson used to have several apple orchards in its environs, and it still has a water tower dressed up as an apple. Its community festival is the Apple Festival, in September each year. Jackson is a nice place to live, and a good place in which to rear children. It is home to Aggie and me.  

I am Bill Martin, a retired local lawyer. My ancestor was the first permanent white settler in Jackson County, and his nickname was Saltboiler John Martin. Hence the name of this web site. My wife Aggie and I have been interested for many years in local spring wildflowers, local history, and travel. This web site will share the results of our interests in local history.