bread named "salt rising"

The name %26quot;salt rising bread%26quot; is said to arise from use of salt as a warming environemnt for the bread starter. As an instance see the rec.food.baking posting %26quot;Re Q%26#39;s about Salt Rising Bread; 07 Nov 1997 by Johnson%26quot;. Johnson and Fannie Farmer, like most if not all others, does not cite a credible historical reference for this idea. Please find a primary historical account for the notion that salt rising bread is so-named because warm salt was used in creating the starter. Johnson would not pass himself off as a primary source and the Fannie Farmer citation is equally bogus. (Make that %26quot;I will wait up to one month.%26quot; rather than %26quot;I want to wait one month.%26quot;)
I found a comment that the reason for using salt was to inhibit the growth of any natural yeasts that might have contaminated the starter, thus encouraging the bacteria which give the bread its characteristic taste and smell: http://www.geocities.com/napavalley/6454/breads.html There%26#39;s something about the science behind it at http://web.mountain.net/~petsonk/ I%26#39;ve also found a biography of Ann Willden Johnson (OUR PIONEER MOTHER As told to LENORA JOHNSON MACDONALD 1912-1920, http://handfamily.org/prefpion.htm) Chapter 2, at http://handfamily.org/chp2pion.htm has the following extract referring to the early 1860s: %26quot;After a time our provisions gave out. Soon we found the %26quot;cached%26quot; wheat, or we might have starved. The wheat was all we had to live on. At first we ate it boiled, and then my husband decided to make a Danish mill of two flat stones. We ground the wheat and sifted it through my veil, then I made some %26quot;salt rising%26quot; bread; though it was somewhat gritty, - we did not care as it was far better than the boiled wheat.%26quot;
Paul: Jenny Bardwell and Susan Ray Brown are well known to me; we have corresponded extensively about salt rising bread. They admit that they have no idea about the origin of the supposed naming convention. I have run the same Google queries you used with the results you obtained. A report of my rather extensive experimentation with salt rising bread is in the throes of publication. I have pretty well demonstrated that salt is a necessary part of an SRB starter. I characterize the warming salt idea as a latter day theory because despite many attempts to find the origin, no person or reference has ever referred to an historical reference. I would quickly modify my account if there is credible evidence for the naming notion. I have also sought references to use and storage of household salt in the 18th and 19th centuries.. Thus far, I have found nothing general. In particular, I have found no account that describes a practice of holding salt near a fireplace to keep it dry.
Tehuti: You followed a trail that I thought might lead to something; i.e., biographical accounts and diaries from the 18th and 19th centuries. The term seems to appear often enough, but always in contexts where it was assumed well-known. There are a couple of 19th century newspaper references about prizes awarded for SRB in baking competitions. I tried to learn something from Mormon Church records, but, apart from geneology data, there doesn%26#39;t seem to be much available on the Web.