Tanneries, Mills, and Ice
Saw
mills were plentiful back when logging was one of the principal businesses in
the
To the right is a picture of the Mill House. When the mill was still in business, the workers stayed at the Mill House. When the dam was built, Charlie and Julia Preston lived in the Mill House, since Charlie was the dam caretaker. They made the Mill House into a sort of boarding house.
* * *
On
the right, there is a picture of the last remnants of the tannery in
In
the tannery on the left, hides from animals were tanned into leather via a long
and strenuous process. When the hides arrived at the tanning house, the hides
were stewed and the hair and flesh was removed in the beam house. The hides sat
in lofts for six months before the process continued. After that time, the
prepared hides were brought to the vats of tanning fluid, each vat containing a
different strength tanning liquor, a fluid made of hemlock bark soaked in
water. The skins rotated between the vats, getting swirled with long poles at
regular intervals (in the early days of tanning, this part may take fifteen
months). The hides were then dragged out of the vats and laid on a large drying
floor above the vats. Finally, four men finished the process and rolled the
hides.
* * *
Ice-making and storage
Back in the days before electric refrigeration, people used to cut out pieces of ice when the lakes became frozen over. To the right is a picture of people loading ice into the back of a truck after it has been cut by a saw. This ice went to an ice house, a heavily insulated structure that was loaded with ice and sawdust so that people could have ice in the summer.
-All pictures courtesy of the Sequicentennial of the Town of Arietta, Hamilton County, New York.