GLOVE MANUFACTURE IN AMER ICA dates from about the year 1760, when Sir William Johnson, chief agent of King George with the North American Indians, brought over from Scotland several families from Perthshire, which settled in the eastern part of what is now Fulton County, N. Y, call ing the town Perth. Many of these settlers had been glove-makers and members of the glove guild in Scotland, and brought with them glove patterns and the proper needles and threads for glove making. The first gloves and mittens were used chiefly by the farmers and wood choppers as a protection for the hands while engaged in the rough and la borious work incident to their occupation. The entire output of the industry for many years was probably disposed of in the immediate vicinity. It was not until about 1809 that gloves were manufactured for more distant markets, and it is stated that Talmadge Edwards, a store keeper of Johnstown, N. Y., was the pioneer in the manufacture of gloves in commercial quan tities. Mr. Edwards took a bag of them on horseback to Albany when making a trip for the purpose of renewing his stock of merchan dise. Finding a good demand for these articles, he had leather dressed in quantities, and secured farmers' girls to come to his factory to cut gloves, which were then sent out to farmers' wives to be sewed. In this manner the glove and mitten industry of the United States was established. During the incipient stages of this industry the goods produced were really mittens, and not gloves. A glove, as distinguished from a mitten, is a covering for the hand in which each finger is separately enclosed, the part above the hand varying in length according to fashion or convenience. About the year 1810 a glove manufacturer, who had been associated with Mr. Edwards, sold a part of his output by the dozen, and this is said to be the first instance in which they were sold by the quantity. The local demand continued to increase, and each year some enterprising manufacturer would venture to make an extended trip to dispose of his product. In 1825 Elisha Johnson, of Glov
ersville, N. Y., went to Boston with a load of gloves in a lumber wagon, making the journey in six weeks, This is said to have been the longest trip that had been M connection with the industry up to that time, and the sults were highly gratifying to those interested.
Until 1862 the manufacture of gloves in Ful ton County, N. Y., although even then the chief manufacturing industry, was of comparatively small importance. The stimulating influence of a high protective tariff in I862 showed itself in the increased business at Gloversville, Johns town and the adjbining village of Kingsbor ough, which became at once the leading sources of supply for the home market of gloves of medium grade. While the protective tariff stimulated home industry in one direction, it limited it in another. The domestic materials that could be used in glove making were con fined practically to deer, lamb and sheep skins. The peculiar qualities of the first established it firmly and independently of any tariff, but the others, being inferior in quality to skins of for eign production, could not.e elftectItally exclude foreign made gloves, but were forced to share the market with them. Still, the demand for cheap and medium gloves was limited, and the American manufacturers saw their development arrested, while France, Germany and England continued to supply all the grade'of gloves used in this country. In 1872 the- tariff on im ported skins was removed amid •intense opposi tion and doleful prediction of ruin to the home industry. A large number of skins came from all parts of the world, and the glovers turned their attention to tanning. Instantly experi menting began, and skill in tanning• rapidly in creased, so that the highest grade was attained, and to-day the various kinds 'of leather pro duced in Fulton County are unsurpassed in quality by that furnished in any other part of the world.