Hatmaking in the Harmon House

The animal pelts he bought would soon begin their transformation into fur top hats. First he would lay the pelt on a table and with a stout brush rub in a solution of mercuric nitrate. This highly poisonous solution was necessary to make the infinitesimal barbs on each strand of fur become more pronounced. Then with either large shears or a scraping knife he would remove the fur from the skin and place it in a stack. After the hair had been laboriously picked out of the fur, the most difficult part of the process began. A device resembling a violin bow but five or six times as big was brought down over the table. Snapping the catgut on the pile of fur on the bench separated, scattered, and gradually deposited the particles in a smaller and finer sheet. Each sheet represented one hat. With further manipulation, the fibers hooked themselves together into what ultimately became the fur fabric of the hat. The rest of the process is difficult to describe, but Ellen eventually learned the simplest part of it, which was shaping the crown of the hat.1BIO 24.3

The price of a hat ranged all the way from 75 cents to $15, depending on the quality of the fur. It must be remembered that in those days 75 cents was the pay for ten hours of diligent work of a well-trained artisan.1BIO 25.1

Robert Harmon soon discovered, as did others in Portland, that in the South, with its agricultural economy, the prices for hats were much better than they were for those sold locally. In early 1804 the hatters of New England had established stores in Savannah, Georgia. Hats worth $90 a dozen in the North went for $120 a dozen in the South. Robert Harmon made a business trip to Georgia in 1837, the year of Ellen's accident.1BIO 25.2