184 [Assembly 



digression, to give you a succinct, historical, and statistical account 

 of my tannery, which I may, I hope, without incurring the charge 

 of egotism or vanity, be allowed to say has been conducted with 

 sufficient energy and skill to realize for me a competency, while it 

 has been the means of spreading comfort and plenty to all directly 

 or indirectly connected with its operations. And having closed the 

 operations of the tannery, I may be allowed here to remark that the 

 improvement in the business of a community, and aiding a society 

 where such r,n establishment exists, always paying promptly, and 

 liberally rewarding the diligent laborer, can only be appreciated by 

 the few who understand its advantages. And I may in justice to 

 myself express the proud satisfaction of having conducted this vast 

 business without litigation — truly accomplishing what I said to my 

 neighbors in the outset — that " I came to live with them, not on 

 them." 



A little more than twenty years ago, the district of country in 

 which it stands was a perfect wilderness. Although just back of 

 the well-known Catskill range, and not more than thirty-six miles 

 from the banks of the Hudson, the great thoroughfare of our interior 

 trade, the depths of its hemlock forests, the solitude of its mountain 

 glens, and the flashing of its tumbling brooks, had been explored 

 only by the foot of the hunter, and were as little known to the public 

 as the slopes and valleys of the Rocky Mountains. 



In 1824 I visited this district, and my judgment at once decided 

 me to select it as the most advantageous location for the prosecution 

 of my enterprise. It has ever been my motto, that to will and to do 

 are one and the same thing. I accordingly went to work, and in 

 less than ninety days a tannery was erected, and ready to commence 

 business. 



My tannery is an immense wooden building, 530 feet in length, 

 43 feet in breadth, and two stories and a half high. Within this 

 area are contained 300 vats, tanning over 60,000 sides a year, with 

 conductors to draw the liquor to the pump, affording about 46,000 

 cubic feet of room for tanning purposes. A large wing, forty feet 

 by eighty, extending over the stream, contains twelve leaches, six of 

 them furnished with copper heaters, containing about 12,000 feet, 

 and also the bark loft, through which, in the course of the year, pass- 

 es more than six thousand cords of bark. The mills through which 

 it is ground are capable of grinding over a cord of bark per hour ; 

 and it has connected v(?ith it a pump of sufficient capacity to deliver 



