The large advertisement for “Saleratus!” on page 12 led me to look it up. (It’s a chemical leavening agent used in baking.) In an episode of the memoirs of the Mormon pioneers which I was reading last night, a young girl remembered her mother’s making biscuits using “saleratus” collected from the ground near the trail. She said they were rather bitter and salty, but the mineral turned them a pretty orange color.
Have you seen “The Village Blacksmith”?
I find that John Ford made a 1922 adaptation of the Longfellow poem. Now lost. Is that what you mean?