John Clifford Salt (1857-1926)

In a conversation with my sister recently we briefly touched on the question of what ancestors had died from.  She asked in particular about our Salt grandfather and great grandfather and I was able to give her the short answers (what I remembered had been on their death certificates).  Then I started to tell about great grandfather, John Clifford, being in the state mental hospital and realized that I haven’t written about this grandfather’s story (except in passing).  So here is what I know at this point – which is less than I wish or feel like I should be able to know.

John Clifford was the fourth child, third son, of Edward Wilshire Salt and Ann Chew Justice of Saltair, Ohio.  They lived on the Salt family farm.  Although E. W. and Ann Salt had 5 children born, only 2 – the last two sons – survived to marry and have children.  Our great grandfather John Clifford and his younger brother Edward Wilshire Salt Jr. both left children.  E.W. Salt, Sr. died in 1864 and Ann was left with 4 children to raise on her own (I’ve written about her in the past).

John Clifford, or Cliff as his cousins apparently knew him, lived with his mother and siblings – mostly on the farm but spending some time in New Ricnmond, Ohio to go to school.  Cousin Ruhama said that Ann Salt moved the family off the farm when Wilshire (as her husband was known) died at 40.  She wanted the children to have a better education than in the schools available near the farm.  It isn’t clear when she moved off the farm or when she brought the family back, but in 1870 they were in New Richmond.  Based on Cliff’s age in 1870 I would guess they might have stayed in New Richmond several years.

By the end of 1879 Cliff’s older brother Savil died back on the farm.  In the 1880 census Ann and her two youngest sons (John Clifford who was then 21, and Edward Wilshire, Jr., then 19) were certainly back on the farm with the young men working as farm laborers.  Their second cousin Clifford Justice was also living with them at the time.  This cousin living with them may have led to John Clifford’s meeting or socializing with another second cousin, Katie J. Coffin, who he married in 1883.

Clifford and Katie lived on the farm, and had three children between 1888 and 1893.  These were Annie (1888-1890), Henry C. (1890-1922) and Susan Ruhama or Ruie (1893-1987).  Little Annie died young, of “cholera infantum and teething”¹  I have written elsewhere about Henry, my grandfather, and about Susan Ruhama.

The story about Clifford that was passed down by cousin Ruhama (and an older brother of hers) was that Clifford as a young family man was doing one of the usual yearly winter chores of putting up ice.  There was a neighborhood group of farm men doing this – cutting ice and pulling it to an ice house to be preserved with sawdust giving the families ice into the summer for cooling things and making ice cream.  Apparently what happened was that Clifford slipped and fell on the ice, hitting his head in what must have been a serious injury.  Cousin Ruhama said that “later on” it caused him to be institutionalized in Dayton, Ohio.  While there are no good records from the time, we do know a couple of things.  In 1893, very shortly after his last child, Ruie, was born, he was probated insane by his wife Katie.  I have the original court papers showing Katie making application and being appointed his guardian.  By 1900 he was in the State Hospital for the Insane in Dayton by report on the federal census (listed as Charles J. Salt).  I have no records showing when he was sent there, so don’t know if she tried to keep him at home at first or whether he was immediately hospitalized.

The only other story about him and his life, also from cousin Ruhama, was while institutionalized he worked (perhaps was in charge of) in the on-site bakery.  He was listed with Baker as his occupation at the State Hospital in the 1910 federal census.  Apparently his head injury or mental state left him fine most of the time.  “But there would be times when the pressure would build up and he would ask them to have him confined. One time they did not confine him quickly enough and he had taken the dough and thrown it all over the room – even to the ceiling.”²

Cousin Ruhama’s mother, Mary Ruhama Ely Brown (also called Ruie), would occasionally be able to take the local electric trolley to connect to a train and go up to visit her cousin Cliff in the hospital.  These visits were the source of the stories, I would guess, and that she later told her children.  There is no evidence that his wife Katie ever visited once he was institutionalized.

There is nothing much known about Cliff’s last years in the hospital, and the hospital records didn’t seem to have much personal information about him.  He died in 1926 and the information on the death certificate was taken from the hospital records (parents, birth date and place, etc.).  The cause of death was listed as Senility and then Arteriosclerosis with contribution from Senile Psychosis.  The death certificate says he was buried in New Richmond, although there is at least a stone marker in the Old Bethel Church cemetery (and cousin Ruhama said he was buried there).

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