Tannery

Tannery.

"The Tannery is one of our most paying and indispensable trades. It supplies all our shoemaking trades in Bethlehem. Nazareth, Friedrichstal and Gnadenhuetten and all our people with leather." , Bishop John Cammerhof , March, 1748

, Colonial Bethlehem had an ideal location for a tannery, the industry in which animal hides are processed into leather. The Monocacy Creek provided water to wash the hides before, during and after tanning. The adjacent butchery provided a large supply of animal hides. The forests surrounding Bethlehem provided large quantities of oak and hemlock trees to supply the bark which produced the tannic acid used in the tanning process., Bethlehem's first tannery was a small log structure built in 1743 which stood on the opposite side of the raceway. The second, larger tannery was constructed in 1761. Here Moravian tanners worked about 3,000 hide each year. During the years of the American Revolution, their output rose to about 6,000 hides annually to help supply leather to the Continental Army., Tanning ended in Bethlehem in 1873. After that time, the tannery was converted into apartments and eventually house other businesses such as a commercial laundry in the 1900s. The building was restored and opened to the public as a museum in 1971., In the late 1800s, the tannery was used as a multi-family dwelling.