News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1890-08-07
The Tannery of the Past.

Inc Tannery of the Past.
We remember it distinctly. Their
were, say, twenty watts out of doors
chlefiy used for packing down sole
leather to tan during the winter, TIN
accumulation of spent tan-bark beins
Plied on top too deeply for Jacl
FROST to penetrate and do any
Marin. The ats-we saw them made
indeed helped make some of them
and also helped ''pack" them with
blue clay before the inevitable anG
Weil-nigh ineXhaustible tan-bark filled
around them to their brim.
In the house (almost buried in tan.
bark, was first the heater" wood
EN- tub of twenty-five barrels capaci-
ty, with a sheet-iron bottom, set on
an arch, the fiue of which coiled up to
the center, and the water-tight (some-
tlmes) pipe went up to the roof
through the middle of the heater.
Great two-inch plugs or shoppers
were to be found on three sides, and
IL was a tournament to see the tan
ner astride the "spouts'' withdraw
the plugs and not get scalded.
There was one power pump worked
by long pole from the ''fulling- mil, :"
attached almost over the said pump
to one spoke of a wheel, and the sue
ton rod of the pump to another
spoke quartering to the first, in a big
old hub on wooden gudgeon that
was somehow hold of the roof of the
building. The pump was a square
wooden tube about four inches edge
ways, and the suction was made by
a pocket of leather at the bottom of
the rod, held up by shoulder-straps
nailed to the rod a suitable distance
above. The mysteries of the lower
valve the writer never fathomed
Though he fell into the vat often
enough and had to be fished out),
and the system of conductors by
which the liquor in most of the watts
could find it's way underground to
the one in the corner of which that
old pump-stock was nailed was only
understood because we had been
there mixing clay when the thing was
put in and before it was covered
The water was understood to come
in logs, first to the tanners house
on the hill above, and then to the
tannery.
The bark-mill was boisterous,
piece of machinery on
the top of a shaft which constituted
the center of an over-shot wheel, and
it often got out of bark when we were
tending it at the wages of "a whip
lash an hour" or rather looking out
of the window at the overflow of the
water above the ''pent-stock," or up
there at the top to see if another
trout had got down the raceway
The bark came enthusiastically
by way of the tanners eldest and not
very hopeful son, and his poor old
horse, who wore the neighborhood
soubriquet of 'Hippity-clinch''; or by
some team of better grade belong
ing to a neighbor, who had borrowed
the tanners "spud" (the only one in
all those regions) and had peeled his
hemlock logs before taking them to
the saw-mill. There was an old up
saw-mill above, which usu-
ally ran while it's poor little pond
lasted, and the bark-mill had to hur-
ry up and use the water over while it
lasted, and the spent tan-bark-how
it did fill and make lurid good deal
of roadway for miles around A lit
tie of it when well dried was burned
in the heater, and in winter the fires
were often banked with it; but what
a waste it was, and not even the tan
ner knew thereof. His head was full
of MISUNDERSTANDING to invent a
perpetual motion, etc, but he never
thought of making his business pay
better, poor soul!
The "curry-shop" was up the hill,
and was often the resort of the neigh
borhood in a rainy day in summer,
and many day in winter. Every
man brought his hides thither, usual
Iy one or two per year, had his
cut in the corner, and inquired
when the leather would be tanned,
and if one hide would pay for the tan
ming of the other If any man want
ed a harness, a new pair of tugs, or a
pair of boots, he would find the tan
ner ready to cut the articles duly,
uhu Cuii &c nm u pliCo ny WtlSHu.
Indeed, any man could buy pair of
taps for his boots there. and go up in
the loft of the building, where was a
shoemaker's shop, and get them put
on while he sat byin his stockings and
discussed national politics or the af-
fairs of Hungary { Kossuth had just
reached America), orcompared notes
with other neighbors as to cattle and
crops
How much lore there was to be
learned gratis in that tannery, to be
sure. We learned to haul the hides
from the vat into a pile, to spread
them back so that they should color
evenly, to cut and braid four-strand
and even tried to test the
strength of the hemlock in the liquor
by tasting; when the sole-leather was
to be sent off we assisted in handling
the dies which stamped the exact
weight on every ''side" of it, and adj
led the incontrovertible dictum of a
'B'' or a "G," as the proper town
officer directed. Indeed, we did a
business alone in ''tan-
ming in white cat, woodchuck and
squirrel skins, which duly went into
mittens or whips, or porte-monnaies,
Or bOok-coYers, or little boX-covers, |