The story of sea salt production on Cape Cod reads like a history textbook on war, industrialization, agriculture, and economics. Local sea captains first learned how to harvest sea salt from a European physician who wrote about the lucrative sea salt business in France that used solar evaporation along the Bay of Biscay. 

For many years throughout history, salt was a special commodity—it has been used as currency, and wars have been fought over it, even right here on the shores of Barnstable Harbor. Farther away, salt tax revenues were used to build the Great Wall of China. The word salary is derived from salt which was used as an allowance for Roman soldiers and at some points, salt was valued as highly as gold. 

Hundreds of years ago, salt had traditionally been imported to New England, but when the British blockaded Boston Harbor in 1774, Cape Codders became desperate for salt to maintain operations for the commercial cod fishery.  

A retired sea captain got to work and built the first saltworks in Sesuit Harbor. After much trial and error, despite setbacks like doubts from neighbors, and an interesting adventure involving a shipwreck off the coast of Truro where he pirated a bilge pump for water transport, Captain John Sears began producing bushels of sea salt in 1776. With bushels weighing in at around 30 pounds, his first summer yielded eight, the next summer thirty. Eventually, he incorporated windmills for water transportation, and designed vats with sliding roofs to protect the salt from rain and other debris as it dried. 

During the revolutionary war, prices skyrocketed when Congress levied tariffs on imported salt. Then, when the British Navy destroyed local fishing vessels, Cape Cod’s mariners needed work. Salt production promised a living wage and serviced a need....