By Lisa Robinson
The chestnut oak, tanoak, or tan-bark oak, is so named because its flower resembles that of the chest-nut and its nut that of an acorn. It is, however, a member of the beech tree family. Its bark is high in tannic acid, and it was extensively harvested here for the leather tanning industry. Because it was cheaper to import the hides than to export tanoak bark and lime, the tanning industry became a huge part of the County’s economy.
The first tannery was built by the Santa Cruz Mission fathers. The vats were made of stone and they eventually became part of the Boston and Jones Tannery. In 1986, on the old Boston and Jones tannery site on Escalona Drive, a Mission era stone tanning vat was found during the construction of a foundation of a garage. The vat, one of four constructed around 1805, was built of limestone and mortar to form the walls, and the floor was tiled.The remnants of another primitive tannery is pictured here. No longer in existence, this crude redwood tanning vat was just off the main redwood loop trail at what is now Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, then called Big Trees Park. It was twelve feet long and three feet wide. A roof had been added in later years to help preserve it.
The postcard caption refers to the vat as General Fremont’s and the story goes that after Fremont and his men had journeyed to Santa Cruz on their way to Monterey, their shoes had worn out. While camped for around six weeks on Isaac Graham’s ranch in 1843, they created a crude tannery to repair their footwear.
Perhaps we will never know if the story is true, but it is certain that the crude tannery existed. Some early accounts talk of four to six vats created from hollowed redwood trees. Caroline Dall remarked in her book My First Holiday, 1881, “Square tanks were cut in the trunks of giant trees. I should think each one might hold a single hide.”
John Williams, likely brother of pioneer Bonny Doon millman James Williams (for whom Williams Landing near Davenport is named), operated the tannery between 1844 and 1846 before he left for the gold fields. He tanned cattle hides and deer skins, and by one account, bear skins. His work-men apparently used the hollowed out, now named, Fremont Tree as a dwelling.
Another tannery in the San Lorenzo Valley was the Finlay, Maclay, Peery, and Huston tannery which opened in 1872 and was located at Joseph Peery’s shingle mill in Lorenzo at the south end of Boulder Creek. In 1878, Peery bought the equipment of the now closed Boston tannery in Santa Cruz for $1700, which he paid for in lumber. The kips, or bundles of hides, were imported, often from San Francisco. The tannery was operated until 1897 when the mill and tannery were all but lost to fire.
An 1874 Santa Cruz Sentinel article describes the lengthy tanning process: The “green salted” hides are first thoroughly cleaned by soaking twice in water. After this they soaked in a bath of “milk of lime” for a week. Then the hair is scraped off. The hide working machine, which works them on the hair or grain side, then thoroughly cleans the surface. They are now ready for the first process of tanning, called raising or coloring. “The sides, or half the hide, is suspended in rocking frames, in a vat containing weak ooze or bark liquor. After having been sufficiently swelled, or raised, the sides are put into the layaways; first a layer of hides and then a layer of bark, the vat being afterwards filled with a stronger liquor.” After being in the vats for a few weeks, the spent bark is thrown out, a fresh layer is put in, and a stronger liquor. This process is repeat-ed three to four times, the hides spending about four months in the vats.
When tanned, the leather is oiled on the grain and dried in large lofts. The sides were then sprinkled with water, and then rolled using a small brass roller attached to an oscillating pendulum, with a very heavy pressure. Lastly the leather was weighed, graded, rolled up in bales of ten sides, and sent to San Francisco for sale.