I read that before people bought salt in little one-pound boxes, they sold salt by the barrel, and the local general store owner parceled it out to ever how much the customer wanted. How many pounds of salt would have been in one of those barrels?
I read that before people bought salt in little one-pound boxes, they sold salt by the barrel, and the local general store owner parceled it out to ever how much the customer wanted. How many pounds of salt would have been in one of those barrels?
A lot will depend on the size of the barrel. They came in many different sizes.
https://enoviti-hanumangirl.blogspot.com/2018/03/oak-barrel-sizes.html
From this: https://www.aqua-calc.com/calculate/volume-to-weight
1 US Gallon of table salt weighs a little over 18 pounds.
The smallest barrel listed at the first link is 11 gallons. that would be 198 pounds of salt.
The largest size is 250 gallons which would be 4,500 pounds of salt.
Good gracious! Thanks for your answer. I thought the answer would be simple - 47 pounds or something. It never occurred to me that a barrel of salt could weigh over two tons.
I am old enough to remember barrels of stuff for sale in general stores - cheese and pickles for example. The old men gathered round an old pot-bellied stove and told tall tales in the winter. they chewed tobacco and spat the juice into a spittoon.
the answer is so complicated it makes me wonder what the answer might have been if, instead of salt, I'd asked about a barrel of monkeys.
It never occurred to me that a barrel of salt could weigh over two tons.
Yeah, but 250 gallons is a really big barrel called a tun.
Tuns were probably not used much for dry goods.
What most Americans probably picture when you say barrel unqualified would be an ASB (American Standard Barrel 54 gallons), this is close in size to the 55 gallon steel oil drum.
An ASB of table salt would be around 972 pounds, just a bit under half a ton.
In the UK, according to the 1911 Census, my grandfather was a Salt Merchant. That consisted of him going around the streets with a hand barrow and chipping the salt off blocks to give the customer what they wanted. He also had the contract with the local prison to supply salt for the hangings - the bodies where buried in unmarked graves and covered with salt. The good old gruesome days.
If you google - Royal Navy salt barrels - there are images of the barrels that the salt beef and pork came in
If you google - Royal Navy salt barrels - there are images of the barrels that the salt beef and pork came in
He was looking for a barrel of just salt, not salted meat.