ises about 150 deposites for hides, a Bark House about 22 by 82 feet, built of 

 good materials and is nearly new, a Mill house with a Mill lately built for 

 grinding quercitron bark; also, an Iron Mill, Beam House, Handling House, 

 Currying Shop, and Stable for four horses.'""^ 



Occasionally, an individual processed only bark; one such estab- 

 lishment was owned by Joseph Oliver, who entered the bark 

 business in 1815 at Milford in Kent County. Oliver's grinding 

 mill was water powered, and from it came 1500 tons of bark, which 

 sold for around $40 a ton, amounting to $60,000 annually. Most 

 of Oliver's bark was shipped to Philadelphia and New York, and 

 from there frequently exported either to "Great Britain, France, 

 Russia and Germany," or sent to "the New England manufactur- 

 ing States." Not all of Oliver's bark was shipped out of the state, 

 for in the 1820's he was supplying A. Cardon and Company in 

 New Castle County with black oak. Oliver's mill was a large- 

 scale operation. He employed "fifty able-bodied men" and worked 

 them "twelve hours each day" for "mostly the whole year" at an 

 average wage of about seventy-five cents per day. One of Oliver's 

 few worries was the "discovery of a number of substitutes" for 

 tanbark.^^^ 



Another large tannery, at Smyrna in southern Delaware, be- 

 longed to John and Alexander Peterson and dated from 1782. 

 Sole leather was their principal product in 1832, and their invest- 

 ment in buildings, vats, mills, and pumps was $7500; their total 

 capital investment was about $25,000. The Petersons employed 

 nine men at an average wage of $15 per month. This was, accord- 

 ing to them, above the usual wage for agricultural laborers which 

 "in this district is from ten to twelve dollars per month when they 

 board themselves, [and] from five to seven dollars . . . when 

 boarded." The tanning business in Smyrna was so improved by 

 1832 that the Petersons intended to convert their horse-powered 

 mill to waterpower "this present year." Like their upstate com- 

 petitors, a few tanners in southern Delaware noted some improve- 

 ment in business generally, and the gradual upswing prompted a 

 cautious optimism that envisioned a ten-percent profit on capital 

 invested if, of course, the enterprise was "judiciously managed." 



1-3 Delaware Gazette, March 3, 1826. The property was at Sahsbury (Old Duck Creek) in Kent 

 County and was advertised by Robert Patterson and P. Spruance, Jr. See also the Gazette advertise- 

 ment of April 23, 1824, for a tanner at Leipsic in Kent County. 



12< McLane Report, vol 2, pp. 673-674. Oliver frequently did business with A. Cardon and 

 Company, as will be seen in the following chapter. 



'25 McLane Report, vol. 2, pp. 666-667. 



49 



