One of Southern Illinois' unique historical sites is going to close down soon unless the state of Illinois buys it.

The Crenshaw House, more commonly known as the Old Slave House, in Gallatin County will close to the public in November, according to owner George Sisk, after 66 years. Sisk has offered it to the state.

State Rep. David Phelps has tried to interest the state, according to the minutes of the Aug. 23 meeting of the Gallatin County Economic Development Group, but there is no word yet on what the state will do.

The house has also had letters of support, from private citizens to support, from private citizens to elected officials, such as a 1990 letter from then-Comptroller Roland Burris.

"The turnoff to the house on Route 1 is an uneven gravel road that appears to run invisibly into the trees, Is this a dead end, the wrong way? but the road hooks sharply to the right, where there is a barn, weathered gray, falling down and covered with vines on its east side. Above, the house sits looking down, its third floor window like a sentry's eye. And it is literally the window to the soul of the house."

Salt played a much bigger role in economies of the past than it does today. It used to be used for money, and the Latin word for salt is the root of today's word salary.

Gallatin County was the site of a salt marsh, named Half-Moon by the Indians because of its shape, according to the May/June 1972 issue of Illiwek, a history newsletter. At the suggestion of William Henry Harrison, a delegate to Congress from the Northwest Territory, which included Illinois, Congress made all salt springs and licks the property of the United States. The idea was to save timber that was being wasted in boiling down salt water.

In 1803, the Treasurer of the United States was authorized to lease salt licks and springs, which then put Half-Moon Lick into production and gave rise to Shawneetown. A couple of years later, the responsibility of leasing fell to the governor of the territory. Gov. Harrison secured Half-Moon from the Indians, with the proviso that they would be given salt.

When Illinois became a state in 1818, ownership of saline springs were given to state, as long it kept leasing them out.

The last lease that was granted was made to the grandson of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence - John Hart Crenshaw.

The second floor of the house is like many museums, with many old household goods under glass cases - awls, cigar box openers, ice shavers, glove stretchers, hair clippers, razors, mouse traps, coffee grinders, pea podders, and other items too numerous to mention. Rooms in period decoration are cordoned off with wire grills so visitors can look but not touch. The grills are something of an unintentional irony, given the history of the house. Although there are many antique rifles and pistols, there is nothing that suggests anything sinister, except for two pairs of leg shackles dated 1860.

Crenshaw, the original owner of the house, made his fortune in salt.

Salt water was pumped up from the ground sent through wooden pipes - bored out logs driven together - to the salt kettles. After boiling the salt down, Crenshaw could sell it for $1.25 a bushel. Crenshaw made hundreds of thousands of dollars selling salt, so much that at one point one seventh of the state of Illinois' taxes came from this one man.

The state legalized another one of his business endeavors - slavery. Although Illinois was constitutionally a free state, slaves worked on Crenshaw's 30,000 acres, his own private empire. There had been a labor shortage at about the time Illinois became a state, so the state constitution had a provision to allow slaves on the saline land it leased. Crenshaw leased laves from Kentucky.

In 1830, he leased 746 slaves.

He also dealt in slaves, particularly with kidnapping escaped slaves and selling them back to the South. There were plenty of opportunities to engage in this - 100,000 slaves escaped between 1830 and 1860 - although it wasn't without risk. While he could lease slaves, kidnapping was still illegal. He was once indicted for kidnapping in Gallatin County, according to a brochure on the house, but was acquitted. Innocent or merely influential, no one can say.

Crenshaw's dealing led to one architectural oddity of the house he built in the 1830's - doors on the north side of that wagons could enter through and be concealed from prying eyes. The wagons carried captured slaves, who were then whisked up to the third floor to await sale.

A long, too-narrow staircase, with bare wooden steps worn down and worn smooth by years of sue, leads to the third floor, 12-by-50 foot hallway lined with cells. The third floor has never been remodeled and has never been used for anything past its original purpose 160 years ago. The floor is bare pocked with knotholes. Some holes have been covered with a plank nailed to the floor, the edges rounded. The third floor has deteriorated over the years - plaster remains in some places, in others the lathing is exposed and covered with chicken wire. Graffit painted and scratched into wood and plaster scars the surface, but the scars are minor compared to the pictures of scars on slave's backs that are shown on the first floor.

The larger cells are about the size of a large bathroom with a roof that slants down from the door, leaving little room to stand. They have barred windows facing the hallways. Women and children occupied the cells; maximum occupancy was eight to 10.

The smaller cells, designed to break insubordinance, fit two slaves. A wooden bunk bed for two takes up most the cell. The space between the wood and the wall is precisely enough room to stand, if you are not a big person. When the door closed there was no light or ventilation. The cells were an early version of solitary confinement - not quite solitary, but definitely confined.

"Crenshaw was a wicked man," Sisk said.

One anecdote of the Crenshaw House is that at one time, he beat some female slaves. The beating must have been especially brutal, because some of the male slaves rose up against their master and hacked one of his legs off.

Treatment of the slaves did not improve. Later pictures of Crenshaw with his wife show him with a crutch across his lap.

Crenshaw is also said to have bred slaves as well, using one called Uncle Bob Wilson as a stud. He fathered 300 children and died in 1949, 114 years old.

Over the Labor Day weekend, the outside temperature reached the mid-80's. The third floor of the Crenshaw House was too warm, the air still and heavy. One can only imagine being locked in one of the cells during a hot summer like last year and with other people crowed in - the word intolerable doesn't seem to cover it. Opening the north and south windows must have helped, at least those guarding the slaves. But the slaves themselves? Maybe the ones with a barred window to allow the air to circulate. Certainly not those in a coffin-size cell.

The floor was curiously quiet, even when people were present. The conversations or exclamations you could hear on the second floor were gone.

Neither slavery nor Crenshaw's salt works lasted forever, and as it happened, Crenshaw gave out first. The competition in the 1840's was too stiff for him, and he was forced out of the salt business. Some of the land was sold to Gallatin Township school trustees in 1847, the rest auctioned off in 1852.

Another salt works started production with some innovations, but closed in 1873, two years after Crenshaw died. Crenshaw's wife died in 1881.

Various news clippings posted around the house tell tales of mystery and horror. The Globe, from Sept. 6, 1983, has ghosthunters Ed and Loraine Warren saying there is some "demoniacal" presence in the Crenshaw house.

A pair of Vietnam veterans tried to spend the night on the third floor - emphasis on tried.

A WSIL news broadcaster, David Rodgers of Harrisburg, did stay the night in 1978 - and he said he heard unexplainable whispering and footsteps.

There is also talk that at times music can be heard, ostensibly played by Sinia Crenshaw, the master's wife and noted local musician.

Sisk said he himself has not heard or seen anything supernatural. In fact, if the state does not buy the house, he and his wife will live there.

Do ghosts of whipped, tortured slaves haunt the Crenshaw House? Does it matter? If there are no ghosts of slaves and masters, there is still the ghost of history in every corner of Crenshaw House. And it will never leave.