On the fourth year Sears Folly was improved with a pump worked by hand.
Production was stepped up. The pump continued in use until 1785, then,
at a suggestion of Capt. Nathaniel Freeman, John Sears, with the help
of others, contrived a pump worked by wind. This really turned the
trick and set the skipper off full sail to become the local Croesus.
Salt sold at $8 a bushel ($8 was $8 in those times) and the bushels
piled higher and higher at the Sears works. By this time the neighbors
had gotten sober and interested and other salt-making windmills were
erected and their creaking and whirring were familiar sounds throughout
the village. The men who assisted John Sears with his windmill
improvement eventually reassigned to him their right and title and
finally the founder of the salt industry obtained a Government patent.
The production of salt spread in other parts of the Cape, notably
Provincetown, a great fishing port and, earlier, a whaler’s haven.
Salt-making began there in 1800; in 1837 the tip of the Cape had 78
salt works, each employing two men and producing a total of 48,960
bushels of salt. The manufacturing developed even to a higher plan when
Glauber Salts, made from boiling brine, was valued by physicians and
came into brisk demand.
Development of the salt springs of New York, and manufacturing
improvements and cheaper operating costs elsewhere, marked the
beginning of the end of Cape Cod’s great salt industry.