were only young, me and my brother. He took us into the factory with him to help him pack his, and he’d pack ours. That was a long time ago. Finlay MacDonald. He had a factory down at the shore and we packed them there.

But then there was smacks started coming in and buying them from Nova Scotia. Big boats. We called them smacks. Maritime Packers came in then and that put the little factories all out of business. They were selling them right there to the Maritime Packers. It lasted till the Fishermen’s Union started down here.

There wasn’t too many boats selling to the union when they started, but they built up fast. Willie [MacKenzie] was the head of it; [and] Stewart Ross*. We were shipping [market lobsters] to Boston. The union... give us everything after the expenses. We got it all; near twice what we were getting from [Maritime Packers].

That went for years, and then lobsters got awful scarce here. Not enough to keep the factory going, so they closed down. Not too many years ago. I suppose perhaps 15 years ago or so. Perhaps not that.

The Tannery

The tannery. .. was right down here. It was really on this farm, the lower end of it. But it was there before I was born. It was quite a tannery; big, big tannery. I guess it was a hundred feet long, and it was two storey and a half high. There was a lot of work done in that tannery. Yes, there was a big business.

Albert Vickerson. He was formerly from out back of town there somewhere. Oh, we were often in there watching — helping him too — when we were young fellas. It was hard work. He was a hard-working man. Just helping him drag the hides in. Cow hides. [The farmers’d] take the hides when they’d kill an animal. They’d...sell the hides to him and he’d manufacture it.

Well, first of all, what I remember of them, he used to hang them over the bridge, both sides of the bridge, right from the shore out, full length of the old bridge there, on ropes you know. It helped take the hair out of them, you see; softened them up... . They’d be hanging there for weeks. Then, when he’d want... so many hides, he’d go out and haul them in with horse and truck. They picked them up in the tannery and they’d go to work on them, cleaning them all off... . He ’d a big scraper that run over the hide and took the hair all off. Smoothed it right off.

Then he’d put [them] in vats: big vats he had in the bottom part of the tannery. Soaked them there in the vats in the tan-bark. There was a great

Baxter Ross 235