Old Smith Tannery Buildings Fall Before Wrecker’s Axe-This Day In Norwood History-November 17, 1949

One of the oldest buildings in Norwood, the 31/j-story main building of the Smith plant of the Winslow Bros. & Smith tannery on Railroad avenue, and the other smaller buildings on the property are being razed and soon the structures where once were employed over 400 men will fall before the hammers of a Quincy building wrecking concern, martyrs to the advance of progress and victims of advanced methods of leather manufacturing.

According to Ray Alden of Howard street, who until his retirement a few months ago was employed at the Smith plant for 40 years and 7 months and who revealed that his late father, Markus M. Alden labored there for 50 years until his death in 1927, the buildings were erected before the Civil War and housed a furniture manufacturing concern.

The main building was built by the Haley, Morse & Boyden Furniture Company long before the start of the Civil War, Mr. Alden revealed last night and years later they sold the property to the tannery and moved to Boston and then later to Grand Rapids, Michigan. They were one of the largest manufacturers of hardwood furniture in the country.

“I often looked at the hand-hewn timbers in the tannery buildings,”- Alden said, “and they were really fine. Some of the planking along the roof was »11 hand sawed in one piece.”

Years ago, the Smith plant, one of the few bark tanning plants in the East, employed over 400 men and was one of the largest leather plants south of Boston.

In the last 20 years, bark tanning has proven to be more expensive than in the years prior to the late 20’s and gradually the number of men employed there dwindled until in the past few years the peak employment figure was anywhere from 120 to 200 men.

Alden revealed that with rising costs curtailing the local bark tanning process, the Winslow Bros. & Smith firm bought a bark tanning plant at Canton, Maine-, about 40 miles from Lewiston and that with the closing of the Smith plant, all of the bark tanning done by the company is now done there. By an odd coincidence, Alden stated, the’ old Smith plant was officially closed on the day that he retired from work.

In speaking of his late father, Markus Alden, Ray Alden said that his father knew every nook and corner of the 20-odd buildings on the property although some of the buildings were interlocked but were known on the records by numbers.

(All articles originally published in the Norwood Messenger)