Davis Tannery - History

The Davis family had been involved in the leather business since 1834. Coming to Canada from North Carolina via New York, the family arrived as Loyalists in Chippewa, ON in 1792, then moving to Stoney Creek in 1794, with four generations having carried on the family business as of the 1940's. Davis’ business was established in Kinghorn (King City), ON in 1867.  Two fires there, the second on March 14, 1903 led to relocation to Kingston. Bird's-eye view of the Davis Tannery (top photo). A similar two-page illustration from the book The Davis Family and the Leather Industry, published on the firm's centenary: 

Opening as Ford & Son in the late 1860's, the tannery was built on four-and-a-half acres, the MacLean Farm Lot 1, at the present-day Rideau and Orchard Streets area north of River Street. The tannery operation was taken over by Joseph Carrington in the 1890's (after an 1889 fire) and sold to A.Davis & Son in 1903 (signed agreement below). The location was considered ideal because of its ready nearby supply of hemlock bark, plus nearby water and rail transportation. (Hemlock was often substituted locally for the crushed oak bark used to soak hides in pits before drying, as had been done in Europe.)

The Carrington tannery was already a going concern here, and the firm could quickly get back in production. The city provided good fire protection, and there were at least some local sources for hides. The Kingston operation would focus on the vegetable-tanning side of the business, with chrome tanning production carrying on in Newmarket.

Operations at the Kingston tannery commenced on July 15, 1903 with full possession on December 1 after the Carrington stock had been worked through, and the first Davis hides left the tannery by early-December, 1903. Strap and bag leathers were among the tannery's output at the time. The four months suspension of production, between the March fire and the July commencement in Kingston, meant the loss of the domestic shoe-leather market. It would take a year to get it back, though the Carrington export trade was resumed immediately under Davis ownership.

The original frame building on the site (see below) measured 200x40 feet and was four storeys high. A brick steam power house was made of brick - it and a leach house were separate. The plant had the capacity to handle 400 sides of bark-tanned leather per day. The original building was destroyed by fire on August 7, 1914 along with the new leach house and power house. The Davises had erected a brick leach house in 1904, and were the first tannery in Canada to have tanning liquors moved from storage to tan vats by compressed air. The fire meant a 40% loss in production capacity. River water replaced well water in 1904. Electricity from a generator was added in 1905, and three more buildings built in 1908: a new 210 x 62-foot concrete four-storey building including a basement, a new 2-storey storehouse, and a new chimney for improved draft from the furnaces. Production costs decreased, with output tripling! 

In 1910, 14 acres were added to the plant property to provide more drainage and water supply. Chromium tanning replaced 'vegetable' tanning in 1912. A fire in the bark mill caused $1,000 damage on December 19, 1916. The construction of a replacement 1919 building, built by McKelvey & Birch was delayed due to high post-war construction costs. This 200 x45-foot storehouse building, adjacent to the GTR siding built in 1913-14, was the site of a fire in October 3, 1923 that originated in the store room and spread to the shipping room. The store room and inventory therein was a complete loss. Rebuilt structures were constructed to be fireproof, with fire-resistant materials and sprinkler systems added in 1924. Six-and-a-half acres of land were purchased by the tannery in 1923, intended to provide a settling area for effluent on its way to the Cataraqui River. Former smelter buildings for storage, and CPR spurs were taken over by the tannery, with the tannery property totalling 25 acres.

The Kingston operation was named A. Davis and Son Ltd., though operated by Harold W. and Elmer Davis. Davis Leather Company remained in Newmarket, operated by the other three sons of company president the Hon. Elihu J. Davis and Margaret Johnston Davis: Aubrey, Andrew and E.J. Jr. The business was thus divided when Elihu died in 1936, leaving a fortune of $3,483,635 over 50% held in stocks, and Elmer and Harold Wilkie Davis to operate the Kingston tannery. Elmer became President of A. Davis and Son, after serving as Vice-President and Secretary-Treasurer. Harold W. Davis graduated as an electrical engineer from the University of Toronto, elected director and later Secretary-Treasurer.

This archival artwork actually matched reality, uncommon for early industrial enterprise advertising. The main buildings were three storeys plus basement, with two wings. An advertising feature from 1929 included a photo and description of the tannery:

A Grand Trunk Railway spur ended at Orchard Street, with an under-track hopper for the tannery. Tanning bark, coal and raw hides were brought in, with tanned sides of finished leather shipped out by rail. During World War I, the tannery supplied huge quantities of leather to a Boston firm that had a contract to supply boots to the Russian army, as well as chrome re-tans for army shoes. The value of this leather was more than $188,000 in 1915 alone. The war had caused a worldwide hide shortage, with Asian sources and Australia even contributing kangaroo hides to make leather products. By 1920, the tannery produced 1,000 upper leather sides and 1,500 splits per day – one of Canada’s largest tanneries.

The company was proud of its involvement in World War II. In a 1945 victory parade, the company entered a float built on a flatbed truck. Slogans proudly proclaimed: “Forty Percent of the Employees of this Firm in 1939 Volunteered for Active Service”, “We Are Proud of this Record” and “The War in Europe Was not won Without Boots – A. Davis & Son Limited and Their Employees Produced the Leather”. In fact, 80% of Davis' work during World War II was war production. 

Over 180 men worked there at the time; the largest producer of leather products for Canada's armed forces: shoes and boots for the Canadian Army militia, Navy and Air Force, aerial gear bags and even machete sheaths! Wartime civilian production centred on gloves for munitions workers, juvenile and nurses' shoes, and "every type of civilian footwear". Seventy employees out of 125 employed early in the war served with the armed services overseas, and 15 in Canada. A wartime industry-wide shortage of trained labour and a shortage of 90,000 hides here in 1943 could have led to leather shoe rationing! Two veterans had returned to work there by August 31, 1945. 

Harold P. Davis, son of Harold W. Davis, graduated from RMC in 1935, joined the army in 1942 with wartime service in the PWOR at Debert, NS in 1943 and as a Captain with the 4 Canadian Infantry Training Regiment in England in 1944-45. A lengthy struggle to get an early discharge for Captain Davis from overseas service stretched from 1943 to 1945, outlasting hostilites in Europe and his return via 1 Canadian Reception Depot in England. Upon his return, Harold P. Davis was appointed secretary-treasurer then Vice-President.

A plan from a 1947 siding agreement between Davis and CN shows the single (formerly GTR) spur between the plant buildings (above). It's likely that the track hopper is part of a United Steel Corporation, Dodge Manufacturing Division (Toronto) coal-handling system. With a 100-ton capacity coal bunker, horizontal conveyor, bucket elevator, the equipment was sold along with two boilers when the tannery converted to gas from coal in the 1960's. A photo of the CN spur entering the plant from the Rideau Street side, taken for a January, 1966 waste disposal report:

The CN spur was surrendered on April 20, 1971 not having been used nor kept in service for years. The tannery’s storage area was also served by one or two CP spurs, added May 1, 1922 along Orchard Street, across River Street to the former Kingston Smelting Co./British American Smelter lands.  

Plans exist for 1933 and 1937 plant additions, and 1947 office additions. While President, Elmer died in Kingston in 1959, Harold W. was elected President and Harold P. Vice-President in 1960. Plant production continued at 1,000 sides and 1,000 splits per day, largely for the Canadian shoe-manufacturing market. Due to domestic upper leather over-production and decreased leather shoe production, there was increasing need for export volume to the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Central American countries. The Davis' control of the business has been called 'near-obsessive' and perhaps rightly so. But once outside interests became involved, the tannery's demise was inevitable. Another contributing factor was the rise of plastic in all phases of our lives, such as replacing quality leather products in shoe production.

Some scribbled 1971 notes from J. Kane to President Harold P. Davis, as to whether the CP spur was still needed, penned in 1971 and, as with most other photos in this post, held by the Queen's University Archives A.Davis and Son Ltd Fonds. 

Mr. Kane promptly wrote to CP to save the company $117 a year:

The tannery's legal firm concurred with CP's response:

Here's CP's confirmation of spur surrender:

Merging with Winnipeg’s Dominion Tanners, announced November 5, 1973 the Kingston operation was closed, with Davis’ proprietary leathers incorporated into Dominion’s product range. The plant employed 125 at the time of the announcement, and work wound up in 1974. Exporting Canadian hides then imported from Europe as finished shoes was the downfall of the Canadian tanning industry, as were plastic-based shoes.

The property remained in the hands of Harold Davis when the family abandoned the site and stopped paying taxes. The plant was subsequently demolished in January-April 1984, with the smokestack demolished by explosion on June 1. The tannery site may be the site of a remediated brownfield residential development in the near future. By 2003, outstanding taxes ran to $2.5 million. 

Letters were sent to local business partners and suppliers at the time of closing, with responses like this one (below). When Elmer's daughter Margaret died in 1979, $1.5 million was released from the estate and given to seven Kingston groups and causes including Sydenham Street United Church, Kingston General Hospital, the YMCA, United Church of Canada Pension Fund, and Queen's University.

Environmental damage left behind by tannery and smelting operations on the east side of Orchard Street has hindered planned redevelopment of the site previously. Lead, chromium, mercury and many, many more. Persistent complaints about smells resulted in a  'no comment' from Harold P. Davis in 1966, though a planned new sewer line to connect to the city sewer system, for the first time, was expected to alleviate these. The Ontario Water Resources Commission ordered the connection in 1965, even though tannery management threatened closure if costs proved too high. Indeed, environmental discussions re: the tannery effluent were ongoing throughout the 1960's.

A 1949 aerial view, showing the tannery on Rideau Street at top, River and Orchard Streets with Dyeco at extreme left, crumbling smelter buildings at bottom, with the effluent-filled Inner Harbour mere feet away:

A 1951 aerial view:

Post-abandonment views

The above sheds were the backdrop for a staff composite photo taken in 1938:

I've received requests from family members of those pictured in the above photo. The original poster to the Vintage Kingston Facebook group, Glen Leader, had provided three close-up images of the photo:

Memories:

I am a little shy to admit it, but I spent a lot of time in the old Davis Tannery after it was closed. A few classmates spent many of our lunch times down at the Tannery, a few blocks  from school,   exploring and .....well, then wrecking the old buildings.  When I heard the news that the guard dogs securing the place since it it had closed in 1971, had been withdrawn because their paws were rotting from the spilled chemicals at the site, well, I had to check it out. Avoiding the beautifully coloured spills of liquids we saw all over the complex, we found things to convince us that we were the first in since the place had closed, as if the workers had just walked way. There were intact offices with a lot of files still in the cabinets,  (which we pawed through, of course, and found records back to the 1920's ), the paint department, machine shop and the great tanning vats underground,....It was  a fascinating display of early 20th century industrialization of an age-old  process. So, what did we do after exploring all the tunnels and connected buildings and piecing together how it had all worked? Well, we took sledgehammers to it and delighted in collapsing  a few floors, flooding a few tunnels and wrecking just about every window in the place. We knew that  everything was slated for demolition, so it didn't bother us.

The owners would drive to gate in their black Buicks, all dolled up in furs, and employees would be there that did not have running water, or heat, or enough food in their own homes. They were worked like the cows  The chemicals would give some of them bloody noses.

I worked at the tannery in 1969, first in the finishing department, probably what you referred to as the paint department, and then running the freight elevator. My job was relatively clean but there were parts of the place I would never go into.

My great-grandfather, came to Kingston as a currier (leather worker) around 1900 and worked at Davis Tannery until he died in 1921.

I worked at the Tannery one summer as a young lad. My aunt worked there full-time in the finishing department. I can remember working the graveyard shift which was better, in my opinion then the day shift. I worked both. It was so hot most days that they gave you salt pills so you didn't collapse from heat exhaustion. They had salt pills dispensers hung on the wall. I can remember that it was very hard work most times but I believe I was paid well as a kid. I would carry the hides on large poles to the hanging station for drying. On the graveyard shift, I would work the toggle machine where we stretched the hides on the machine for further drying if I can remember correctly. That was approx 49 or 50 years ago. I've forgotten alot over the years. I had some good memories of working hard but being paid an above average wage.

Philip Davis was in our school class. It was his family’s business.

I worked there, and my job was to throw pieces of leather into the press. The son, Steve Davis, was there at the time. 

We would buy tanned hides in our teenage years. We made leather belts, purses and wrist bands, then sold them at the market. 

I worked there trimming leather in 1974. 

The smell from the tannery was awful when the railway cars were being unloaded. 

My grandfather was a tanner. The tannery gave him a job when he arrived in Canada. At the time, he probably couldn’t speak English very well. He was very loyal to the company and lived a happy life because he worked there 

We used to play in the abandoned building when we were kids. There was this massive table in the boardroom. It was too big to remove, so they just left it behind.  

(memories are from various social media)

1970's views from along Rideau Street, with CN track visible in foreground:

The tannery buildings were taken down in the winter of 1983-84.