Found McClellan tree maker paper

[CowboyCurry]

Howdy,

I was removing the old leather and rawhide off of a McClellan tree that I had just received and found something interesting. Under the old rawhide near the pommel I found a slip of paper (pic below) still in good condition. It had printed on it "Manufactured By J.M. Hays Wood Products Jefferson City U.S.A.". The only information I could find on the internet was that they made duck decoys from 1921-1925. I was curious if anyone had any additional information about the company and when they produced saddle trees. Also has anyone found similar "manufactured by" papers in their saddle?

Thanks

Matt

[Rod and Denise Nikkel]

We found this paper under the rawhide on the front of a cantle on a tree we duplicated many years ago.  Unfortunately, that was before we started keeping the old trees if the saddle maker didn't want them.  We didn't even ask - just shipped it back.  Would love to have kept that one now...

[Harfindel]

I would contact Ken Knopp at confederatesaddles.com.  He has a really amazing depth of knowledge about Civil War military saddles, in particular.

[cowboycolonel]

I found one kind of like it on an Old Porter I restored about 10 or so years ago

[MilitaryHorse]

J. M. Hays Wood Products Co. was the saddletree factory that was located at the Missouri State Penitentiary from about 1878 to 1918, known as the J. S. Sullivan Saddletree Co. prior to 1912.  J.M. Hays was the son-in-law of the original owner, J.S. Sullivan, and the general manager of the plant for many years prior to buying his father-in-law out.  

They were THE major producer of saddletrees in the US from the 1880s through WW1, and put a lot of folks out of business with their low-priced prison-labor products.  Canada actually prohibited US saddletrees (among other prison-made products) from being imported for this very reason.   In their 1911 catalog, they boasted about the hundreds of styles they could make, and the many countries around the world they shipped to.

They made a quality product - it's just the source of the cheap labor that caused them issues.  They provided VAST numbers of saddletrees for WW1 contractors, so you find these paper labels in many old surplus saddles.  The Missouri Assembly finally booted the prison labor racket in mid-1918, and that was the end of the saddletree business. Immediately post-war, Hays took the tooling and looked for other wood products to make, and ended up making toys and then duck decoys.  Very high quality, and highly prized these days, as they only lasted for a few years before finally folding up.  

Todd H.

https://www.militaryhorse.org/