USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Professional and industrial history of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, Volume III > Part 36
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HIDE AND LEATHER TRADE. 369
found a foothold in this State. It is the first trade of which any record is preserved in history. On the tombs of Thebes, painted four thott- sand years ago, are pictures of tanners at their work. Some of the currying tools delineated there are similar to those used now. Leather tanned with acacia bark and alım has been found in the mummy cases. Bronze leather cutters and scrapers have been found in Mexico among relics of a civilization older than the Aztecs, which denote a knowledge of tanning long before this country was discovered by Europeans.
The first neat cattle were brought into Massachusetts Colony by Ed- ward Winslow in 1624. In the next six years over two hundred head were brought over from England "besides horses, sheep and goats." Mr. Higginson, of Salem, mentions the extraordinary increase of cat- tle in 1630 and speaks of " stores of sumack and other trees good for dyeing and tanning of leather."
The first white settlers of Lynn were Edmund Ingalls, a brewer, and his brother, Francis Ingalls, a tanner. There was plenty of raw ma- terial. Besides neat cattle introduced by Winslow, there were deer and moose in plenty, and, indeed, buckskin was the principal wear of the early colonists. Francis Ingalls put down his tannery on what is now Burrill street, on " Humfry's brook." This location is in Swampscott now. The vats were there until 1825, when they were taken up. Francis Ingalls was born in England in 1601. He lived in Swampscott, then a part of Lynn. Probably his establishing a tannery gave an early impetus to the shoe business. The leather being made here, it was natural enough to turn attention to means for directly applying it to the common necessities of life.
Another tanner of the early days was George Keyser. He dated from 1630. His tannery was in Lynn. An old record (1665) says: " Thomas Newhall's child was drowned in a pitt George Keyser digged. Hee had a tanfatt in the pitt, and George Keyser did take upp his fatt and leave the pitt open." Mr. Keyser is also mentioned in old annals as a miller. He probably followed both occupations. His wife was a daughter of Edward Holyoke, a man of note in the colony, who owned and settled the town that bears his name in Western Massachusetts. Mr. Keyser tanned in Lynn until he moved to Salem in 1680, where his two sons first established the business.
The Burrill tannery was put down in or about 1631, and kept in oper- ation almost two hundred years. The Burrills were held in such rev- erence that they were called "the Royal family of Lynn." Lieut. John
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Burrill started the yard. It was on Boston street. His house stood opposite. The premises are now covered by the morocco factory of John T. Moulton. John Burrill was for twenty-one years a member and ten years speaker of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, and Governor Hutchinson, in his history, compares him to William Pitt, or to Sir Arthur Onslow, an accomplished speaker of the House of Commons. He was a member of the Board of his Majesty's Council for the Colonies. Mr. Burrill died in 1721, and left the tannery to his son, Theophilus. That gentleman, in his will, left it to his grandson, Samuel Lewis, who sold it in 1782 to Daniel Newhall and Nathaniel Sargent. They dissolved, and Mr. Sargent carried it on until his death, in 1798. Then Joseph Watson owned it until 1844. It is now a mo- rocco factory.
Two curriers of Lynn-Hope Allen and Nathaniel Bishop-petitioned the General Court (1664) to forbid tanners and " shewmakers " exercis- ing the trade of curriers. The request was denied, but later the court enacted (1698) that " no person exercising the mystery of a currier or shewmaker shall exercise the feat of a tanner on pain of forfeiture of 6s. 8d. for any hide tanned; also no tanner to exercise the trade of shew- maker or that of a currier, and no shewmaker should use leather made of horse hides for the innersoles on pain of forfeiture of the shoes." One piece of legislation was commendable. A fine of twelve pence was exacted from any butcher who cut hides in flaying.
Leather has always been deemed a necessity in war, and we find in the Colonial Records (1704) that Capt. Benjamin Church, who com- manded the expedition in the French and Indian war, ordered that "500 pairs of shoes be made in Lynn, also good store of cow hides tanned to make more, also hemp and wax to make thread, and a good store of awls furnished."
Searchers and sealers of leather were appointed by the General Court of Massachusetts in 1642. A law was passed that no butcher should exercise the trade of a tanner, and soon after "that no leather should be over-limed, or not sufficiently tanned;" also forbidding any currier to use any "deceitful or subtle mixture," or burn or scald leather under pain of forfeiture.
There were several tanneries put down in Boston previous to the Revolution. William Billings owned a tannery on Frog Lane (now Boylston), near Eliot street, in 1760. He published the "New Eng- land Psalm Singer " in 1770, and other musical books, He pursued the
um H. Moody
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tanning vocation all his life; he also taught church music and composed anthems that were popular long after the Revolution. There was a tannery on Hanover street, nearly opposite the American House, an- other on Milk, near Pearl, and George Robert Twelves Hewes, one of the "Boston Tea Party," had a tannery on Congress street. About 1170 his brother, Shubael Hewes, was a butcher at the corner of Wash- ington street and Harvard Place during the Revolution. About the year 1790 Adam Colson was a tanner on Boylston street. He set out the trees, still standing, on the Mall from Park to West street. His name appears among those who threw the tea overboard; so does that of Matthew Loring, a shoemaker.
The manufacture of leather was confined to the maritime counties for a century and more after the settlement of Boston. Experience Mitchell, a tanner, came over in the third ship from England that landed passengers in Boston. He began to tan leather in East Bridge- water. The stone on which he ground the oak bark is still preserved there. His descendants continued the business, and in 1820 this tan- nery was dismantled after running continuously for one hundred and seventy years. One of the family went out to Hampshire county in 1790 and established the Cummington tannery. Gideon Lee & Co., of New York, sold the leather.
Soon after the commencement of this century hides began to be im- ported from South America. In 1810 it was estimated that one-third of the hides tanned in this country came from there. They were dry and cost 512 cents a pound.
In 1809 the Hampshire Leather Manufacturing Company, capital $100,000, was incorporated by the Legislature. They purchased the tanneries erected by Col. William Edwards, near Northampton. Two Boston and two New York capitalists were stockholders. Ebenezer Francis, of Pemberton square, was one. The capacity of this tannery, 16,000 hides a year, was the greatest in the country at that time. The bark-mill had just been patented. Colonel Edwards invented a hide- mill, copper cylinders for applying heat to extract the tannin, and rolling-mills, the rollers to run by power. Before his time all the sides of leather were smoothed by running a roller loaded with stones over them. This leather was sold in Boston and New York, and when the smooth, shiny sides came into the market they caused great excite- ment. Jacob Lorillard, a rich leather dealer, made the long journey to Northampton to see the new machine work. As he stood by and
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witnessed the operation, he said: "It covers a multitude of sins." All these inventions of Colonel Edwards are in common use in the tanneries of the present day. In 1815 hemlock bark began to grow scarce in that region, so the works were elosed and the machinery transferred to Greene county, N. Y., in the vicinity of the Catskill Mountains. This was the first tannery of any note in New England. It was considered of sufficient consequence to be mentioned in the United States census of 1810-the first one taken-as being "the most important enterprise of the kind in this country."
The gains made in this tannery ranged from 16 to 25 per cent. on dry hides. The sides of leather were trimmed and shaved down, but about 1825 the tanners omitted the "skiving," and thereafter made heavier leather and greater gains. In 1835 they began to sweat hides instead of liming them to unhair in making sole leather, thus perfect- ing a great improvement in tanning.
Tufts College, in Somerville, was built with money left for that pur- pose by Nathan Tufts, a tanner of Charlestown. He did business from 1810 to about 1840. When he sold leather he delivered it in Boston, but never unloaded it from his team until the bill was paid.
In 1837 the first statistical tables of the industry of Massachusetts were prepared by John P. Bigelow, secretary of the Commonwealth. The product of leather, including moroeco, was stated to be $3, 254, 416; of shoes, $14,642,520.
Samuel Philbrick had a leather store on Long Wharf in 1810. The New York dealers came to Boston and bought sole leather, tanned by the Southwicks and others, of him. Gideon Lee & Co. were among his customers. Afterwards they had their first account with the Cum- mington tannery. Gideon Lee, afterwards mayor of New York, and member of Congress, was a native of Cummington.
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CHAPTER II.
Introduction of the Morocco Manufacture-The Pioneers, Lord Timothy Dexter, Elisha Mead, Wm. Rose, Joseph Moulton, P. P. Tapley, the Pevear Brothers, Thomas Dowse, the " Learned Leather Dresser."
IN 1784, when the manufacture of morocco was introduced into this country, the art began to flourish in Massachusetts. This leather has been for more than a hundred and fifty years a favorite material for fine shoes. Felt, in his "Customs of New England," notices that morocco shoes were charged in the import account of a Boston house in 1740. The chief seat of morocco manufacture a hundred years ago was in Charlestown and Malden. A famous tanner was "Lord " Tim- othy Dexter, who finished sheepskins in Malden in 1763. He was known far and wide in New England for his fortunate speculations and eccentricities. He left the business soon after the war, and went to Newburyport, where he became a merchant.
Elisha Mead was the first morocco dresser in Charlestown. He began in 1790 to make " black, white and colored " stock, which he marketed in Boston. His son, Isaac Mead, afterwards founded the firm of Mead & Van Voorhis, who did business up to 1840.
In 1810 the morocco workers of Lynn, Charlestown and Philadelphia tanned 44,053 dozen goatskins.
Phineas Dow, of Boston, patented a leather splitting machine in 1810.
Petitions were presented to Congress in 1811 by morocco manufac- turers of Charlestown and Lynn for additional duties on imported leather, or its prohibition. The petitioners stated that 800,000 skins were annually manufactured in the United States, of which number 150,000 were made in Charlestown, and half as many in Lynn.
The duty on leather was put at five per cent. in 1815. In 1842 it was raised to 6c. on sole and c. a pound on upper, with goatskins $2.50 a dozen.
William Rose came to Lynn in 1800, from England, attracted, no doubt, by the fame the town had attained in the shoe manufacture, and introduced what he called the art and mystery of morocco dressing in
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Lynn. He had such immediate success that customers were compelled to leave their orders weeks in advance. Mr. Rose brought over Eng- lish workmen to do the fine portions of the finishing. He bought an estate and built a house and factory on South Common street. Most of the shoe factories of the town were at that time in the vicinity, while many of the proprietors lived opposite on North Cominon street. Mr. Rose held a great monopoly, and had every opportunity to make a fortune, but his habits were such that he lost the confidence of the community and failed. He had, as he thought, retrieved his fortunes by marrying the widow of a son of Lord Timothy Dexter, a beneficiary under his will, but found when too late that her income was cut off in the event of a second marriage. Then Rose left Lynn and worked as a journeyman in towns in the western part of the State until his death.
When Mr. Rose left Lynn his place was taken by others; they were as unsuccessful as he had been. Joshua R. Gore tried morocco manu- facturing, and soon removed to New Haven. Francis Moore, a pre- ceptor of Lynn Academy, quit teaching and went in with Henry Healy, who had learned the trade with Rose. His experience with "kids" didn't help him; he lost his money. William B. and Joshua Whitney tried the business and retired insolvent. Carter & Tarbell ventured in and came out bankrupt. Samuel Mulliken, mentioned elsewhere, be- came interested in it with Major Daniel R. De Witt, but they abandoned it. Lovejoy & Stockwell went at the business in 1816 and were suc- cessful. John Lovejoy, of this firm, died in Lynn in 1876, aged eighty- seven years. He had been for fifty years a director in the First Na- tional Bank, and trustee of the Institution for Savings. He was one of the first captains of the Lynn Artillery. Rufus Brackett accumulated a fair estate; so did his brother, Newell, also George Brackett. Breed & Damon, Nathan Reed, Peter Hay, Samuel Viall, the Newhalls, Levi Robinson, William Gilson, Edward Carroll (father-in-law of P. P. Tap- ley) were successful in the occupation in early times.
In 1809 Jacob Perkins, of Boston, invented a machine for polish- ing and graining morocco. This was an important aid in its manu- facture.
During the " embargo " of 1812-15 no merchant vessels arrived at or sailed from the ports of Boston and Salem, and goatskins were hard to obtain. Sheepskins were substituted, and the character of the material was sometimes disguised by classifying the goods made from them as "roan shoes," and those for children were called "roan batts."
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Morocco was mostly tanned with sumac. Gambier was also used, and another process was the alum tannage. The methods have been changed and greatly improved in our time, but until within ten years there was very little alteration for eighty years, except in the use of machines for handling the stock in the process of tanning.
One of the Lynn pioneers was Joseph Moulton. He worked as an apprentice in the shop with William Rose. Mr. Moulton began for himself in 1835. Soon after he was chosen by Michael Shepherd and John Bertram, of Salem, to assort and classify all the goatskins they imported. He was a very competent expert.
Philip P. Tapley manufactured in 1843, and was the first in the coun- try to introduce steam in a factory. This was in 1850. He was at that time a partner with John B. Alley and A. S. Mower. They made shoes as well as morocco. The firm was Alley, Tapley & Co. Mr. Tapley was, more recently, interested in the introduction of a leather measur- ing machine.
The two brothers, George K. and Henry A. Pevear, are the oldest morocco manufacturers in Massachusetts. Their father, Burnham Pevear, learned the business in Exeter, N. H., and came to Lynn with his family in 1838. The sons learned of him, but G. K. Pevear served apprenticeship with Kelty & Tapley. In 1847 G. K. Pevear went into business and was soon joined by his brother. The firm was originally Roberts, Pevear & Co .; Thomas Roberts withdrew and the house of Pevear & Co. succeeded. Their factory was on Monroe street. They soon took the leading position in the trade they have since held. In 1858 they opened a store at Nos. 67 and 69 Kilby street, Boston, the first morocco house to do so. In 1859 they employed thirty-two hands, but had a good many skins finished in other shops. They manufact- ured that year 103,000 goatskins. Their sales in Boston, including sumac and patent leather, were $96,000. About the time of the war they began to import South American goatskins, especially paytas. Their operations rapidly rose to the million dollar mark, and when in- comes were assessed during the war, they paid to the government the largest personal tax collected in the morocco trade in Massachusetts. In 1864 they built a large factory on Boston street. In 1883 they dis- solved and formed two firms as follows:
Pevear & Co. have the old factory, the store in Boston, No. 83 High street, and the South American business. The firm is G. K. Pevear and his sons, G. Irving, who attends to the Boston business, and Waldo
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L. Pevear, who is the manufacturer. They tan in Lynn 250 dozen skins daily, combination tannage, and have a tannery in Philadelphia, where, in connection with J. P. Mathieu, they produce 200 dozen a day of the celebrated "Surpass " chrome kid.
H. A. Pevear & Sons built a factory on Boston street 50 by 200, five stories, of brick and wood, with coloring house, engine and store rooms separate. They took possession when the firm dissolved, July 1, 1883. This building is fitted up with the best machinery, automatie sprink- lers, fire alarm, etc. The firm is H. A. Pevear and his sons, Frederick S. and William A. Pevear. This factory stands on the spot where George Gray, the celebrated Lynn hermit, lived and died. To com- memorate this, and preserve the landmark, they named their product " Hermit kid." The capacity is 200 dozen a day, and they are rapidly carrying the production of their new process kid up to that amount. Their Boston store is at No. 61 High street.
G. K. and H. A. Pevear have always retained the land at the corner of Munroe and Washington streets, where they built their first factory. In 1892 they built on it the largest block, so far, erected in Essex county. It is a five-story structure, thoroughly fitted with all the modern conveniences. There are 100,000 feet of floor space in this building.
Henry A. Pevear has been president of the Thomson-Houston Com- pany since its inception. The morocco manufacture is conducted by his sons. Frederick S. Pevear attends to the Boston business. Will- iam A. Pevear is the manufacturer.
Blaney Brothers succeeded to the business of their father. J. W. Blaney, founded in 1848. He was the first to finish skivers and make fancy colors in Lynn.
Augustus B. Martin was born in Charlestown, and learned his trade from James M. Wait. Mr. Martin's father, Newhall Martin, was in the shoe business there for about sixty years. Augustus B. Martin came to Lynn and commenced business in 1855 in company with Moses Norris. In 1858 they dissolved ; each continued alone. Both had been journeymen, working at nine dollars a week, and for a long time after going into business they lived on that sum. Mr. Martin is now one of the richest manufacturers in the country. The year after he dissolved with Mr. Norris he did a business of $30,000, employed eighteen hands and manufactured 50,000 goatskins. He continued alone until 1879. adding regularly to the capacity of his factory. He then associated
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with him his two brothers, James P. and Edward F. Martin; both re- tired within ten years. In 1886 his son, A. B. Martin, jr., was admitted. He died in 1891. Since that time Mr. Martin has done business alone. His factory is 375 by 47, five and six stories. There are 250 hands em- ployed. The beam-house machinery was all made by Hemingway Brothers, of Lynn. There is an ample supply of seasoning, glazing and staking machines. There is a large salesroom at the factory. The Boston store is at No. 76 High street. The chrome and combination processes are used in about equal parts. Patnas are employed for the former, South American skins for the latter. Mr. Martin imports most of his skins direct. The factory output is 250 dozen a day. Mr. Martin has been a member of the City Council and Board of Aldermen ; is vice-president of the Lynn National Bank; a director in the Safe Deposit Company; proprietor of the Bay State Dredging Company, and owns a large block of Thomson-Houston stock.
P. Lennox & Co. are of high standing in the mercantile world. In addition to the morocco industry they have carried out, and have in hand, extensive building operations in Lynn, at Market and Broad streets and Harrison court. A shoe factory of 60,000 square feet is now being erected on Harrison court; another is projected for Broad street. A large factory was a few years ago erected on Market street next to the Lennox block, which was then looked upon as one of the most beautiful structures in the city. It is now nearly all occupied for shoe manufacturing by Corcoran, Callahan & Co. and D. A. Donovan & Co. P. Lennox & Co. date from 1853.
In 1859 there were 1,041,000 skins tanned in Lynn; 340 hands were employed, and the value of morocco produced was $695,000. The largest manufacturer that year tanned 225,000 skins, and the amount of his business was nearly $100,000. Lynn was then, as now, sec- ond in amount of morocco manufactured in the country, the first being Philadelphia.
A noted morocco manufacturer was Thomas Dowse, of Cambridge- port. He was born in Charlestown in 1923, and remembered distinctly all his life the time when he fled, with his parents, from their humble home when the town was burned by the British on the 17th of June, 1175. He returned after the war closed, and at the proper age was apprenticed to learn the tanner's trade. He worked as a journeyman in the shop of Abel Wait, at Roxbury, at twelve dollars a month. He remained there ten years, to 1803, and the highest wages he received
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was twenty-five dollars a month. When he was thirty years old he commenced business for himself in Cambridgeport, and his house and factory still stand on the Main street. His sign was a lamb, carved full size. Some Harvard College students sawed the head off one night, and it remained in that condition as long as he did business. He died in 1856. The trade was profitable; the skins he finished were in request for shoe manufacturers and bookbinders; his gains were steady and frugally husbanded, and he became a rich man. His library, which he presented to the Massachusetts Historical Society at his death, was valued at $40,000; it consisted of five thousand volumes of choice and rare books. In 1820 Mr. Dowse bought three tickets in a lottery in London. The two highest prizes, a collection of rare water colors and copies of engravings and paintings of the old masters, he was fortun- ate enough to draw. The first intimation he had of this was when the collection came to Boston by packet ship, and he was called on to pay about a thousand dollars for duties and freight. This collection was at the time placed on exhibition at Doggett & Co.'s rooms at North Market street, and attracted much attention. Gilbert Stuart and Washington Allston, then residents of Boston, said: "This gallery embodied in the aggregate richer treasures of art than were at that time to be found in the whole United States." This collection he left at his decease to the Boston Atheneum; it embraces the chief gems of the fine galleries of that association at their building on Beacon street. Mr. Dowse was a very busy man all his life. He suffered from lame- ness, due to an accident when a child, but he worked regularly at his trade nearly every day, and even after he was seventy years old went to Boston twice a week, delivering leather and transacting business with his customers. When he died the members of the Historical So- ciety were summoned to attend at their rooms. Hon. Robert C. Win- throp stated the object of the meeting and introduced the orator, Hon. Edward Everett, who delivered an eloquent eulogy on one who was called, during his lifetime, "the learned leather dresser."
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CHAPTER III.
Early Hide Importers-Salem and Boston Merchants-"Billy" Gray-" King" Derby-Statistics of the Leather Trade-Different Kinds of Leather and How Pre- pared-Export Trade-Machinery.
IN the early years of the present century Salem was the great seat of the hide importing business. John Bertram, David Pingree, R. W. Ropes and E. Haskett Derby, "King Derby," as he was called, were the largest merchants in the trade. Their vessels went to Africa. Leonard B. Harrington, afterwards a renowned tanner, made, when a young man, several voyages to that continent. John Bertram continued the business until his death a few years ago.
William Gray was a son of Abraham and grandson of William Gray, shoemakers in Lynn. He was born in 1750. When he grew up his father undertook to teach him the trade, but confinement at the bench was unfavorable to his health. The family had, meantime, moved to Salem, and young Gray was taken in the counting room of Richard Derby, an eminent merchant. He made several voyages as supercargo, taking ventures of his own, as was the custom at that time. By so doing he accumulated money sufficient to engage in business for him- self. From the time Mr. Gray entered upon a mercantile career he prospered exceedingly. He moved to Boston in 1808, and was then considered the richest man in New England. He was known familiarly as " Billy Gray." He always maintained business relations with Lynn manufacturers. For more than forty years he supplied them with Russia sheeting, which was used for shoe linings. He built Gray's Wharf in Boston, at the North End, and did business there. Mr. Gray was elected lieutenant-governor of the State twice (1810-1812). He died in Boston in 1825. His grandson, Horace Gray, is an associate chief justice of the United States Supreme Court.
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