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Original Document
"Mosser and Keck, Tanners of Union Sole Leather, East Allentown," 1881.


For many years Allentown has been known throughout the Lehigh Valley as a location for the tanning of leather, and the fact has been pretty successfully established by numerous competitive examinations and a long experience, that the leather produced in this section is superior to that manufactured at almost any other point in this country. The leading firm engaged in the industry is Messrs. Mosser and Keck, who have now the largest tannery in the entire Valley. The business was established in 1859 by Mosser, Keck and Co., which constituted the firm until 1875, when the present one was organized. Though originally founded upon a limited scale, the resources of the firm have gradually increased, affording facilities at the present time for the transaction of a trade which extends throughout the country.

Two plants are owned and operated by the firm, one which is located in East Allentown, and the other at Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The former is desirably situated on the L. and S. Division of the New Jersey Central Railroad, and occupies about four acres of ground, upon which are extensive buildings, sheddings, etc. The main building is 366 feet long, 42 feet deep, with two wings, 40x50 each. Forty to fifty operators are engaged here, and the mechanical appliances, which are very complete, are operated by an eighty horse-power steam engine and a battery of three boilers. The firm manufacture exclusively the Union Sole Leather, using in its tanning about twelve to fifteen per cent. of oak and eighty five per cent. hemlock bark, which is considered makes a very superior quality of leather. They annually tan about 30,000 hides, and use about seven hundred car loads of bark of ten ton each.

The other tannery at Williamsport, is one of the largest in that section and is thoroughly equipped throughout for the successful prosecution of the business. Here are employed about eighty men, who annually tan about 50,000 hides using twelve hundred cars of bark. The leather manufactured here is the same as at the Allentown tannery. In this department the firm is styles, J. K. Mosser and Co., a son of the senior having an interest, and directly in charge of the management. They also have warehouses in New York and Boston, the former at 39 Frankin street, and the latter at 96 South Street. All the leather produced at both tanneries, is shipped to the main depot in New York, which is the distributing point, and where Mr. Keck is personally in charge.

The individual members of the firm are James K. Mosser, a native of Allentown, and Thomas Keck, born in Allentown, but now a resident of Orange, New Jersey. For business convenience, the firm titles are: Mosser and Keck, of Allentown tannery: Keck and Mosser, in New York and Boston, and J. K. Mosser and Co., (including the two above and Henry S. Mosser), at the Williamsport tannery. All members of the firm have acquired a thorough knowledge of the minutest details of the business, and it would be difficult to find a firm either better equipped or with more comprehensive facilities for the transaction of a large trade and the production of a superior class of goods. They were the recipients of diplomas for excellence of exhibit at both the Centennial and Paris Exposition.

Credit: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania: Manufacturing and Mercantile Resources of the Lehigh Valley (Philadelphia: Industrial Publishing Co., 1881), 117.
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