Court was held there until 1851, when all legal documents were removed to Shawneetown, The building was later used as a school, church & local society meetings.

The government then leased the springs, requiring the holder to produce a certain quantity of salt each year or pay a penalty.

White volunteered for the Indiana Militia that year, and was killed at the Battle of Tippecanoe.

Special territorial laws permitted exceptions to anti-slavery treaties at these salines, and slaves were used extensively in manufacturing salt.

In 1838, a local salt maker and illegal slave trader, John Hart Crenshaw, began building his manor house at Hickory Hill just five miles east of Equality; he used the house for his business of kidnapping free blacks and breeding slaves to sell into slavery as part of the Reverse Underground Railroad.

Half Moon Lick, where the saltworks first developed as a large industry, is on private property southwest of Equality.