Probably the most well-known and largest tannery in the county was the Parmerlee Tannery, located near the Goshen Church in Hamblen Township. With no accurate dates, various accounts from Parmerlee family and former employees say the business spanned from 1825 or 26 until 1935. It was started by Jim Parmerlee, who arrived from Connecticut, where he operated a tannery. He first started business near Nineveh, Indiana and later moved to Brown County to be near a source of the tan bark. Upon Jim’ s death, his son William, and his stepson James took over the business until its closing.
An interesting side story involves Parmerlee and Jacob Nealy, who had a tannery on Bean Blossom Creek near Georgetown and further up the creek from the Parmerlee tannery. Nealy went to Nashville to prosecute Parmerlee for building on the same creek, but he never arrived. He was killed by lightning on this ill-fated legal errand. Parmerlee later married Nealy’ s widow, adding some imagined intrigue to the human narrative of the county’ s tanning industry.
The Parmerlee Tannery purchased some hides locally, but most were shipped from Sydelia, Missouri, where
Parmerlee owned and operated a leather store. This was also a point where he bought and sold hides. From the Missouri location, a supply of hides would arrive in the nearest railroad station, which was then Morgantown, and were then hauled by wagon to the tannery. The superior quality of the leather turned out by the Parmerlee tannery is touted in The Illustrated Historical Atlas of Indiana 1876. It states that the leather won state, national, and international prizes. The annual income was reported as $ 100,000. William Parmerlee went to Sydelia to run the store there when the Brown County business closed.
The Historical Atlas estimates that the tannery used 5,000 cords of tan bark or oak bark per year. A large contingent of seasonal workers would camp in the forest for several weeks in the spring time to peal the bark. Mark Parmerlee, William’ s son, gave special recognition to workers from Brown County families: Goodin, who was the teamster hauling the hides; Oliver Neff, who worked as the finisher; and a worker from the Schrougham family.
In closing, this article is dedicated to my grandson who is named Tanner Pearson—“ Tanner” being an honorable craftsman in earlier times. •
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March / April 2019 • Our Brown County 59