Judge David Ruffner

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Ruffner, David, born in Page county, Virginia, in 1767, son of Joseph and Anna (Heistand) Ruffner, and grandson of Peter Ruffner, who emigrated from the German-Swiss border to Pennsylvania in 1739, and later settled in Page county, Virginia, where he became owner of an immense tract of land. Joseph Ruffner, in 1795, sold his Shenandoah estate, purchased five hundred and two acres in the Kanawha valley (now in West Virginia), and removed there with his family. This property included the salt spring on the Kanawha river, at which a band of Indians had camped in 1753, while returning from a raid with their white prisoners. One of these, Mrs. Mary Inglis, made her escape afterward and described the spring where the Indians had supplied themselves with salt by boiling down the water. Although Ruffner realized the potential value of this spring, he died in 1803 without developing it, willing it to his sons, David and Joseph. Before 1803 the spring was producing one hundred and fifty pounds per day, by simple methods, and the salt was noted for its superior quality, but desiring to obtain a larger supply, the brothers began to look for the source. They traced it to the "Great Buffalo Lick" just at the river's edge six miles above Charleston; this was twelve or fifteen rods in extent. In order to reach the bottom of the quicksand through which the brine flowed, they set a platform on the top of a hollow sycamore tree about four feet in diameter, and by means of a pole with its fulcrum on a forked stick, a bucket made of half a whiskey barrel could be filled by one man armed with pick and shovel, and emptied by two men standing on the platform. Rigging up a long iron drill with a two-and-a-half-inch chisel, they attached the upper end to a spring pole by a rope, and with this primitive instrument finally bored forty feet through solid rock, reaching several cavities filled with strong salt water. This was brought to the surface undiluted, through wooden tubes, joined together and wound with twine. Thus was bored, tubed, rigged and worked the first drilled salt well west of the Alleghanies, if not in the United States. Considering the Ruffner's lack of preliminary study or experience, working in a newly settled country, without steam power, machine shops, materials, or skilled mechanics, this is a wonderful engineering feat. In a crude way they invented nearly every appliance that has since made artesian boring possible. In February, 1808, the first salt was taken from the furnace, and the price reduced to four cents a pound. Ruffner Brothers were the pioneers of salt manufacture in the Kanawha valley, and industry that as early as 1817 comprised thirty furnaces and twenty wells, producing seven hundred thousand bushels yearly. David Ruffner, the leader, was educated in the Page county schools, and engaged in farming until he began the manufacture of salt. Subsequently he made many improvements in drilling appliances, some of which are still in use. He became the leading man in Kanawha county, which he repeatedly represented in the Virginia legislature and he was for many years presiding judge of the county court. 

He was married, in 1789, to Ann, daughter of Henry Brumbach, of Rockingham county, Virginia, and had by her four children: Henry, who became a Presbyterian minister and was president of Washington College, Lexington, Virginia; Anne E., Susan B., and Lewis Ruffner. His brother Joseph (born February 14, 1769, died 1837) sold his interest in the salt works and went to Ohio, where he bought land which eventually became a part of Cincinnati. Judge Ruffner died in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1837.