Coldengham, New York
Store of Cadwallader Colden, Jr.
Tanning
Saturday, April 9, 250 years ago, was a busy day at the Colden Store. Thirty-seven transactions were entered in the DayBook into twenty different accounts.
Nehemiah Carpenter was paid by Colden for his services as a tanner on this day. He tanned 47 hides weighing 388 pounds for Colden.
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This article is one in a series of a daily accountings of Colden Store transactions. Be sure you read the first installment for an introduction to the store. You should also read this article which appeared in the Journal of the Orange County Historical Society.
Tanning, the process of turning animal hides into leather, was a long and capital intensive process requiring copious amounts of water. Carpenter's tannery was probably located along a stream, perhaps even the near the Wallkill.
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| The tannery. Scraping hides on left. Soaking hides on right. Image courtesy of colonialsense.com |
It was common for hides to be provided to the tanner by the local yeomen. In return for the tanning services, the tanner would keep half of the resulting leather, sometimes known as a side. In the case of Colden's hides, it appears that Carpenter performed the tanning for a flat rate of one-half shilling per pound of hide.
Colden credited Carpenter's account with six hides that Carpenter had bought with money Colden loaned him on December 9th of last year. Colden credited him with a few shillings more than the value of the loan, 3:12:6 vs, 3:5:0. Colden made the notation "These he is to tan for me."
Just six weeks prior, on February 20, 1768, Nehemiah Carpenter was paid by Colden for making three pairs of shoes by way of a credit to his account. On prior visits to the store, Carpenter had purchased awls, buckles, heels, sole leather, and upper leather. It appears that Carpenter was not only a tanner, but a shoemaker.
There is a good description of the tanning process at "colonialsense.com." The steps included:
1. Soak the clean animal skin in a vat of CaOH solution (made with limestone or seashells) for 2 to 12 months until the hair can be removed easily.
2. Scrape the hide to remove hair, dermis, and fat.
3. Delime the hide in vats using enzymes found in feces, urine, and other decomposing materials. Sometimes done repeatedly with additional scraping.
4. Toughen the hide by soaking in a tannin vat. Usually the tannin came from ground hemlock or oak tree bark. Carpenter probably had a bark mill.
5. Soften the leather with oils and waxes. Carpenter had purchased tallow on December 9, 1767. Perhaps it was for this purpose. If this is the case, he was also a 'currier' in addition to being a tanner and a shoemaker.
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There were no transactions recorded the following day, Sunday, April 10, 1768.
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