Pioneer Leather Tanners

LYNCH, SCHERTZ, ROBERTS, WILLIAMS

Posted By: Joey Stark
Date: 3/3/2011 at 15:17:32

"The Fairfield Daily Journal"
Saturday, December 8, 1917
Page 4, Column 1

PETER ALLAN LYNCH WAS A PIONEER TANNER IN THIS COUNTY...

Mr. LYNCH was one of the early workers in the tan yards near Glendale and Hiram Heaton has the following account of this work in the early history of Jefferson County, given at the Historical Society meeting held Dec. 5th: "Jefferson County was settled before railways had made communication with the world so easy. This led almost every community to be self-sustaining and they manufactured many things which are now manufactured in large factories. Material for shoes was one of the most important requirements and several men undertook to make leather in a small way. A man by the last name of SCHERTZ constructed a tan yard several miles east of Fairfield in the 'Forties' near what is known as Shertz's Creek. The immediate demand for the leather led SCHERTZ to hurry his tanning process and the result was a very poor material. SCHERTZ was a shoe maker as well as a tanner and his imperfectly tanned leather soon lost all shape. Mr. J. W. McLean is authority. Near the center of Penn township Joseph ROBERTS put down a tan yard and the product of this yard was a very superior quality, but the cheap leathers that began to come in from steam tanneries made this very unprofitable business. Then a WILLIAMS and Peter Allan LYNCH put down a tan yard in 1848 or 1849 and did a considerable amount of tanning for a number of years. This tan yard gave employment to several men and furnished a market for a good many cords of oak bark at a time when money was very scarce, before the gold from California came into circulation."

*Transcribed for genealogy purposes; I am not related to the person(s) mentioned.