23 Facts About Lewis Ruffner

Lewis Ruffner was an American merchant, magistrate, slaveowner and politician who helped found the state of West Virginia.

Originally a salt manufacturer in the Kanawha Salines, Ruffner served several terms in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Kanawha County before resigning as he became the company's agent in Louisville, Kentucky, but returned to Virginia in 1857.

Joseph Ruffner bought additional land nearby, as well as the defensive Clendenin Blockhouse, into which his firstborn son David Ruffner moved with his wife and children in 1796.

David Lewis Ruffner received the property closest to the future city of Charleston, including the famous salt lick, which Joseph Sr.

In 1805 David Lewis Ruffner bought a mill and house from George Alderson and moved his family to the "Kanawha Salines", where he began developing the salt works.

In 1816 Lewis was sent to Lexington, Virginia to study at Washington College for two years, following a course laid by his elder brother Henry Ruffner, who became a Presbyterian minister and built a church in his hometown before returning to Washington College to teach and serve as its president.

On November 20,1826, Lewis Ruffner married Elizabeth Shrewsbury, daughter of another early saline manufacturer, Joel Shrewsbury, and who bore David Henry Ruffner, Lewis Ruffner Jr.

Almost a year after her death in January 1843, Lewis Ruffner married Viola Ruffner, a Vermont-born schoolteacher in Hamilton County, Ohio on December 2,1843.

In 1818, having completed his education, Lewis Ruffner taught school for a year, then joined in his father's salt operations, which became his career.

However, Lewis Ruffner was not re-elected until 1825, when he replaced Lovell as one of Kanawha County's delegates, then won re-election the following year.

Lewis Ruffner did not seek reelection in 1828, perhaps in part because he was elected a local magistrate, a post he held until he moved to Louisville, Kentucky in 1845.

Lewis Ruffner's father had died in 1843, and Louis Ruffner continued in the salt trade in Louisville, as agent for the Kanawha Salt trust now facing competition from salines in Kentucky, Illinois, Ohio as well as mines in New York.

Joel Shrewsbury, William Dickenson, John Dickinson Lewis and Lewis Ruffner were sometimes called the "Salt Kings of Kanawha".

In Louisville, Lewis Ruffner attended the Presbyterian Church led by Dr Stuart Robinson.

On February 28,1849, Lewis Ruffner joined an emancipation society in Louisville.

In 1840 Lewis Ruffner owned 20 slaves in Kanawha County, and in 1850 owned 47 slaves there, and probably indirectly owned others, although not a partner in the county's largest slaveholder, the Shrewsbury and Dickinson saltworks.

In 1857 Lewis Ruffner returned to Malden to manage the salt operations, as a depression which had hit the salt industry, driving all but nine salt manufacturing companies out of business by 1860 and reducing the county's slave population to 2,184 persons.

Meanwhile, Confederates occupied the salt works in late 1862, and his son David Henry Lewis Ruffner died that December.

Lewis Ruffner fell unconscious and never fully recovered, suffering many memory and vision problems, and needing crutches to walk.

Lewis Ruffner taught Washington the value of a dollar, and encouraged him to further his schooling, allowing him to attend school for an hour each day.

Viola and Lewis Ruffner remained key benefactors of Washington's political and civil efforts, with Viola and Booker T Washington continuing their strong friendship until her death.

Lewis Ruffner died at his Malden home on November 19,1883.

Lewis Ruffner descendants attend the Washington family reunion at Hampton annually, and both families still contribute to causes for the growth of society.