Existing comment:
Converting hides into leather was an Old World craft brought to America by the earliest settlers. Tanneries were established in Delaware during the seventeenth century, and the industry flourished.
By the 1830s, the manufacture of leather ranked with flour milling, textiles, and paper as one of the state's leading industries.
Local farms supplied some of the hides and skins; others were imported from South America. Tan bark came from the oak forests which once covered parts of the state.
Mechanization, new tanning methods, and the development of synthetic leathers have brought importance changes to the industry, but Wilmington continues to be a major center for the processing and finishing of various types of leather.
A tannery directed by a young Frenchman, Alexandre Cardon de Sandrans, was operated within the powder yard at Hagley from 1815 to 1826.
Using a new process developed during the French Revolution, Cardon produced finished leather in two to four months instead of the twelve to eighteen months required by traditional methods.
This new process, however, did not result in a high quality product, and a combination of inferior quality and the depressed business conditions of the 1820s forced the closing of the tannery. |