Houck Tannery Registry

Transcribed by Andréa Michelle Hillebrenner,

Fall 2004
Placed on Special Collections Website by Permission of Transcriber

Introduction

In the late 1990s, the McHone brothers were renovating a building for their jewelry store on Court Square in downtown Harrisonburg, Virginia. During renovations, they stumbled upon some business papers in the attic that belonged to the Houck Tannery which was in operation in 1870 until it closed in the 1920s. As it turns out, the papers were in that building because that was the original location of the tannery’s office. These papers were subsequently donated to the James Madison University’s Carrier Library’s Special Collections, in the care of Chris Bolgiano, the Special Collections librarian. Among those papers was the tannery’s employee/contractor registry.

The tannery was originally opened and owned by J.A. Loewenbach [1] in 1871, under the name Harrisonburg Steam Tannery . There is very little information about Loewenbach, but in the 1860s and 1870s he did a good deal of banking in Harrisonburg by being a Commissioner at Rockingham Bank. The Harrisonburg Steam Tannery  was started in the early nineteenth century when businesses in the city required leather for their goods (such as hats, saddles, furniture, and shoes). Before J.P. Houck owned the tannery, it was in the possession of many different owners, including Lowenbach. When the tannery first opened it was co-owned by several men and as a result, the tannery never had one sole business owner for a prolonged period of time.

 In 1878, the tannery was purchased by J.P. Houck , who changed its name simply to the Houck Tannery. Houck was born on April 4, 1839, in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He left his home-state in 1866 to work for the Shenandoah Iron Works in Page County, Virginia.[2] After having success in this business for fourteen years, he chose to move with his family to Harrisonburg, Virginia, where he bought Loewenbach’s tannery. He was a prominent member of the community—a member of the Rockingham Union Lodge; a chief promoter of the Harrisonburg and Western Railway Company; responsible for the tannery bringing the first electric street lights to Harrisonburg (before the formation of the Harrisonburg Election Commission);[3] in 1889, found some oil in a boring well near Harrisonburg. He died on June 16, 1908, and the factory was passed on to his son, Joe (or sometimes referred to by the employees as “Mr. Joe”).     

This tannery was the largest in Harrisonburg, as stated in the Rockingham Register, “the largest in the state and is worthy of special note.”[4] An 1880 census reports a capital investment of seventy-five thousand dollars and by 1885, the tannery was producing 10,000 hides a year.[5] J.P. Houck also owned a store separate from the tannery where household goods and furnishings were sold. The Rockingham Register put out in the year 1880 a Houck and Wallis  store advertisement for leather, carpets, mats, rugs, shoes, saddles, etcetera, and etcetera.[6]

The tannery also dealt with other businesses, which is why there are several prominent names of the Harrisonburg community in the registry, not as employees, but as contractors. One of the contractors listed in the registry is Joshua Wilton. Joshua Wilton was born in Ontario, Canada, on August 19, 1843. In 1865, he came to Harrisonburg and opened up his own hardware store. An advertisement in the Rockingham Register in the year 1879 read as “J. Wilton, Dealer in English and American Hardware. Saddle, harness, and carriage material; tin and wooden ware; iron, nails, horseshoes, glass, and putty; a large stock of cook stoves always at hand. J. Wilton , successor to Rohr, Sprinkel & Co.”[7]

Wilton was a very prominent person within the Harrisonburg community: he was president of the First National Bank in Harrisonburg; in 1870 he was master of the Masonic Lodge in Harrisonburg; he was a member of the Episcopal Church in Rockingham county and Harrisonburg (he wrote an account on the church in 1912); and he was also at point president of the Rockingham Memorial Hospital. He died in Richmond on November 17, 1928.[8]

The Houck Tannery continued its life in Harrisonburg until it closed down in the 1920s. There is no clear reason why the tannery closed, other than to hypothesize that the competition of the other tanneries in the area may have put the Harrisonburg’s tannery out of business. Unfortunately, the original building of the tannery no longer exists. It was torn down and the property was used for a parking deck and a police station (the original property was between Water and Bruce streets). The fact that very little remains of the tannery is why this transcription is very important.

This registry was chosen to be transcribed because over the summer the editor interned at James Madison University’s Carrier Library’s Special Collections. The project as an intern was to process the business receipts of Houck Tannery. There is not much clear information on the tannery because no one has ever written a full, conclusive history on the tannery. All that remains are the business receipts and an article or mention here and there in newspapers or newsletters. In addition to the little information that is available, the records that are available are in fragile condition after being left alone in an attic for almost eighty years. Transcribing certain records that remain from the tannery will act as a preservation method. The reason for this being a preservation method is because some of the documents are very fragile and so less handling of the originals from patrons will extend its life.

Houck Tannery was a successful, booming business in Harrisonburg that employed many. However, for a very successful business at the time, very little detail is known about it. The transcription will provide information and encourage readers or researchers to incorporate the registry in their research. For some people, the words “special collections” might be intimidating (maybe scared of using originals) so the transcription might act as a form of encouragement to choose the subject of tanning or tanneries as their research.

The “Why?”

It is also important to question why a registry was kept in the first place. After reading the through the registry, it is noticeable that someone had went back in pencil and put notations or notes next to some of the names. Although it is not concretely clear the meanings of these notations, it can be hypothesized as to why.

In the beginning, it was said that the registry was made up of employees/contractors. This is because that there are many names that are listed in the registry that at that time in Harrisonburg they owned their own business, such as Wilton, Rohr [9], and Sprinkel [10]. Judging from the business receipts, Houck  did a lot of business with other businesses across the country, by either selling his products in their store or their products in his store or Houck buying materials to use for his business. Many of these contractors have the word “Don” written in next to their name. Even though the author did not make it clear what “Don” is, it might be safe to say that “Don” meant that they were contractors to the tannery. According the Oxford English Dictionary, “Don” can mean “A distinguished man; one of position or importance; a leader, first class man” and in the mid-nineteenth century, the phrase “don workman” was used.[11] Although this hypothesis is not guaranteed to be true, due to the facts given from the registry and the dictionary, the hypothesis is not an unrealistic possibility.

The other reason why the registry might have been kept was because the employees may have not been good citizens of the law. The tanning business was not a desirable job for one to have at the time because of the smell and the grime of the process in the factory.[12] If there was a lack of aspirations to be a tannery factory worker, the employer may have not attracted upstanding citizens. A name in the registry has the word “convict” written besides it and another name has the word “larceny” next it. When reading the “Colored” section of the registry (it was divided by race), some names are indicated that they are “disfranchised,” which means they have had their civil rights taken away; “removed” which could have meant that they were fired; and “away” which could mean they have left the tannery without notice or relocated. In any case, if there are names in the registry that have “disfranchised” or “removed” or in the “White” section, “gone,” its significance is the importance for Houck to keep track of his many employees. Another reason to suspect that the employees were agitators of the law is that in an oral interview with a former employee in the nineteen-teens, he said that when they made camp in the woods (they needed bark as part of the process of tanning), the men often got into fights.[13]                                     

Details of the Registry

The registry has approximately[14] thirty-nine pages written in and page forty to page hundred and fourteen blank. The registry is written on twelve inches by six inches college ruled paper. The condition of the book is that it is fragile, but the first few pages have suffered the most damage after being exposed for almost eighty years to the elements of nature in an attic (dirt, soot, mice, insects, etcetera, and etcetera).

The registry is divided into two sections by race: entitled on every page in the first section is “White” and entitled on every page in the second section is “Colored.” The sections are divided simply by a blank page. In each section, the names of the employees/contractors are grouped alphabetically and within each group the names are written chronologically under a column entitled “When Registered.” This indicated when the employees started their employment at the tannery and when the contractors started to do business with the tannery. However, it could be possible that the employee may have started working before their registered date but was not registered until the registry book was kept.

The next column is the names of the employees/contractors, in the order of last name, first name, middle name, then surname.  The last column is entitled “Age” of the employees/contractors in years.  

            The letter “D” is written in the “White” section next to names of the registry through page nine.[15] It is not made clear in the registry what it means and it is inconsistent. It was suggested that maybe it stood for “Dead” or “Deceased” but it can’t be that reasoning because the writer clearly writes out next to some names the word “dead.” Now in the “Colored” section, there is the word “Disfranch” (meaning “disfranchised”). It cannot be hypothesized that the “D” in the “White” section stands for disfranchised as mentioned in the “Colored” section because some of the names with “D” next to them were some of the prominent members of the community, such as Joshua Wilton . Again, it cannot be concretely stated what “D” means because there is not enough sufficient information.

The letter “R” as seen in the “White” section of the registry is not made clear in the registry what it means and is again inconsistent, because it is only written up through page nine. In the “Colored” section, there is the word “Removed” (also written as “removd”). It could hypothesized that that word for the “Colored” section stands for the “R” in the “White” section but that can only be theorized because it is not clearly stated in the registry or any resources of the exact meaning. “R” does not necessarily stand for “retired” because some of the employees with “R” are too young (range of early twenties to thirties) to be retired and even at the time, men in their forties are still too young to be retired.

As mentioned, the word “Dead” (or related words) is seen in both the “White” and “Colored” section of the registry. “Gone” is also seen in the “White” section of the registry. This can be hypothesized that it means that the person has simply left employment (not necessarily deceased). This word is not consistent in the registry because the writer stops using it starting page ten. Similar to “Gone” is “Away,” which is only seen in the “Colored” section and could mean that the employee was not working there at the present time. Other words included in the “Colored” section are: “Removed” (also written as “removd”) which could have meant that the employee was fired and “Disfranch,” which means disfranchised (deprived of rights as a citizen, and also written as “disfrd” and “disfd”).

 “X” is seen both in the “White” and “Colored” section of the registry. “X” could mean many things, such as that the person is deceased, retired, or not present, etcetera, and etcetera. This letter “X” is sometimes present next to a word or initial or is sometimes written by itself next to a name.                                        

Transcription   

The transcription of the registry was written EXACTLY as is. If a word, number, or notation, will pose confusion for the reader it will be footnoted for clarification. This was done to limit the use of original from patrons as a preservation method. This was also done to preserve the authenticity of the registry and not take away from its character.

One issue to address is the superscripts of the abbreviations of names. The superscript letters were rendered as written. For example, the abbreviation for William is “W^M”. Sometimes the superscript M is underlined and other times it is not and sometimes a period follows the abbreviation. The original registry is not consistent with its markings, so it is important for the reader to keep that in mind. Remember that everything is written verbatim.

Finally, there was only one kind of marking that could not be transcribed exactly via computer. The one marking that posed difficulty during the editing process was that some of the last names that started with “M^C” had “//” underneath the “^C.” This could not be reproduced exactly through the computer so instead all of the names starting with “M^C” will be written as such.

Textual Symbols

The registry was originally written in ink first and then later someone went back and wrote certain words, notations, and numbers, in pencil. In order for the reader to distinguish between ink and pencil, those that are written in pencil will be italicized in the transcription and those written in ink has the normal font.