I live on Tannery Hill Road. Where and what was the “tannery”?
Tannery Hill Road, a short dead-end road off the west side of North Street nearly opposite Mimosa, serves a small development known as Tannery Hill. Subdivided in 1960 by Realtor James Hackert, it consists of 11 lots cut from about 12 acres.
The name stems from the belief that an old house on the road was once associated with the tanning business. An account in 1968, when the house was severely damaged by fire, said the place had been built 150 years earlier by Jabez Mix Gilbert, operator of the Titicus tanning yards, and was called the last remaining building connected with the tannery operations.
Maps from 1856 and 1867 show no buildings in this vicinity (old maps usually listed all major buildings in town and their owners), so if it had been built by then, it may have been rather inconspicuous.
However, Ridgefield historian Silvio Bedini learned that a Lewis Smith had a tannery near here, and old maps show at least two Smith houses along North Street in this neighborhood.
Tanning converted hide to leather. Ridgefield once turned out large quantities of leather, particularly for Western markets. The process involved removing the flesh and hair from the hides supplied by area farmers. The hides were then soaked for two months in oak bark “liquor” to “tan” them, after which they were split, dried and finished.
Several tanning works existed around town — and some farmers did the whole process at home, especially in winter, to earn some cash. However, in the 1800s, when someone spoke of “The Tannery,” they almost always were referring to the large operation at the southwesterly corner of North Salem Road and Saw Mill Hill Road at Titicus Corners.
While some sources report this tannery was founded by Jabez “Uncle Mix” Gilbert mentioned above, it had been previously established — or at least previously operated — by Philip Burr Bradley and Joshua King, two well-known veterans of the American Revolution. When Epenetus How bought a small parcel in Titicus in 1799, the deed notes “King and Bradleys Tan Yard” bordered the property on the west.
In 1806, Gilbert acquired the operation, which then included a bark house and tan vats, and it was being called “J.M. Gilbert’s Tan Works” in 1849. Soon after that, Gilbert died and David H. Valden (whose elegant Victorian house on North Salem Road is now owned by the Eppoliti family) acquired the operation in 1856, by which time it included an “office, or store, currying shop, beam house, bark mill, bark shed, vats, tannery pond…”
Big factories and bigger mills, plus greater sources of hides from Western markets, probably led to the demise of Ridgefield’s relatively modest tanning business. Danbury once had many tanneries to support its huge hatting industry, and there was at least one tannery operating in Bethel until the 1960s or so.—J.S.
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