Cedar Lake Salt Works
Brazoria vicinity, Brazoria County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built in Confederate Texas in 1861-1862. Furnished essential salt to army and civilians. Raided by landing parties of Federals from Gulf ships, Nov. 27, 1862, lost buildings, 22 kettles, 4 large boilers. 10 tons of salt in hide bags was partly ruined. A nearby plant, when attacked next day, was defended by Texas calvary and escaped destruction. Winson's Works, below the San Bernard, was raided. But Moseley's Battery, 7th Texas Artillery Battalion, repulsed the raiders, wounding or killing 23 men as they got into their boats. (1965)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1861–62, the Cedar Lake Salt Works supplied a resource the Confederacy could not do without — salt to preserve meat for its armies and civilians. In November 1862, Federal landing parties from Gulf ships raided the works, destroying buildings, kettles, and boilers and ruining stored salt. When they struck again the next day at a nearby plant, Texas cavalry and Moseley's Battery of the 7th Texas Artillery Battalion drove the raiders back to their boats.
Why it matters
Salt was a strategic necessity of the Civil War, and coastal works like this made the Texas shoreline a target in the wider Union blockade of the Confederacy.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related events
- · Federal raid on Cedar Lake Salt Works, November 1862
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Near Site of Dance Gun Shop
East Columbia, TX
Brothers J. H., George, and David Dance opened a shop on the Brazos River in 1850 that would become one of Texas's few native arms makers. During the Civil War the shop produced revolvers to help arm the Confederacy, prized for their precision. In peacetime the Dances also built machinery for grist mills, cotton gins, sugar refineries, and sawmills.
Confederate Defenses at the Mouth of Caney Creek
Sargent vicinity, TX
In the winter of 1863–64, as Union forces pushed up the Texas coast capturing one port after another, Confederate commander John B. Magruder ordered the mouth of Caney Creek fortified against the advance. Thousands of Confederate troops threw up an earthen fort, redoubts, rifle pits, and trenches near this site, enduring weeks of naval bombardment. No infantry battle ever came—the fortifications did their job as a deterrent, and Banks soon shifted his campaign toward Louisiana.
Ellerslie Plantation
Jones Creek, TX
John Greenville McNeel came to Texas in 1822 as part of Stephen F. Austin's "Old Three Hundred," and near this site rose Ellerslie, one of the region's largest sugar plantations. Its 21-room brick mansion, immense sugar mill, hospital, and slave cabins were built with bricks made by enslaved people, whose forced labor powered the whole enterprise. After McNeel's 1876 death the property passed to relatives, and fire, storm, and time erased the buildings one by one, the last lost in 1983.
Major James Peckham Caldwell
Jones Creek, TX
A close friend of Stephen F. Austin, James Peckham Caldwell received a Mexican land grant in 1824 and became an early industrialist, running what was said to be the first sugar mill on the Brazos. As adjutant of the Texas army he was wounded at the 1832 Battle of Velasco, and he was guarding civilians when Texas won its independence at San Jacinto in 1836. He married Ann Munson, widow of his friend Henry W. Munson.