Later poplar logs were split and dressed with adzes and fitted together into 90 feet long by 16 feet wide barges.  The boat yard was built at Chatham Hill because there were iron furnaces here, and boats launched at Chatham Hill could pick up the iron pigs, and as they proceeded down river they picked up plaster and salt.  Gypsum (plaster) mining is documented as far back as 1815. 

         William King died in 1808.  At some point in time Lewis Toncray, who in 1819 had been the jailer at Abingdon, had amassed an empire of iron, copper, and coal mines in Southwest Virginia.  He also owned a rock salt mine in Saltville*, and a boat yard twelve miles upriver from Saltville.  It is unclear if this is the same boat yard as referenced elsewhere which was at Chatham Hill, but which is 17 miles up stream. (*see reference ‘H’ in bibliography – this is disputed by current historians.)

           When the spring tide came, the boats were launched into the flood.  This running of the river at the spring tide was dangerous.  James White became manager of the King Salt Works, and Toncray contracted to transport 5,000 barrels of salt to the mouth of the Tennessee River for each of three years.  In 1825 four of his boats were “stove in” during the running of the river, and 605 barrels of salt were lost.  In December 1857 half the fleet of 80 boats was destroyed, with the loss of 1,600 barrels of salt.

            The river running lasted until the railroad came to Glade Spring in 1856.  In 1850 there was a meeting of potential investors held in Elizabeth Chapel in Saltville to see about construction of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad that was to run from Narrows, Virginia down the North Fork of the Holston River. 

           The coming of the railroad should have allowed an explosive growth in Saltville.  However, it signaled the end of the era of the Campbell, King, and Preston families’ involvement in the salt, iron, and gypsum business.  Soon after the death of William King in 1808 the family of his brother, James, began to fight each other over the inheritance they had received from their uncle.  To be sure there were also suits brought by the Talberts, Lees, and others who had been involved with the “Outlaw Tract”.  But the children and grandchildren of James King sued each other over the manipulative provisions in William’s will.  The case was appealed and was fought on and on.  In 1834 the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Marshall decided that William King II, the son of James the brother of William the Saltville millionaire, who had been appointed trustee, had actually tried to steal the entire estate. The litigation consumed much of their inherited wealth.