To William Edwards, another son of Timothy, oldest son of Jonathan Edwards, an entire chapter will be given.
CHAPTER X
COLONEL WILLIAM EDWARDS
Fascinating is the story of Colonel William Edwards, grandson of Jonathan Edwards, the inventor of the process of tanning by which the leather industry of the world was revolutionized. In no respect did the intellectual and moral inheritance show itself more clearly than in the recuperative force of the family of Colonel Edwards.
Attention has already been called to the remarkable way in which the father, Timothy Edwards, re-established himself and educated his large family after his great financial reverses in the period of the Revolutionary war, but the story of Colonel William Edwards is even a more striking illustration of this same power. He was born at Elizabeth, New Jersey, November 11, 1770. He was a mere child during the Revolutionary struggle. Before he was two years old the father removed to Stockbridge, Mass., and the boy grew up in as thoroughly a rural community as could be found. The school privileges were very meagre. No books were printed in the American colonies because of British prohibition. From early childhood he had to work, first as his mother's assistant, tending the children and doing all kinds of household work such as a handy boy can do. As soon as he could sit on a horse he rode for light ploughing and by the time he was ten was driving oxen for heavy ploughing and teaming.
William Edwards was only thirteen when he was put out as an apprentice to a tanner in Elizabethtown, N.J. To reach this place the lad had to ride horseback to the Hudson river, about thirty miles, make arrangements to have the horse taken back, and take passage on a West Indies cattle brig to New York. It took him a week to get to New York. He then took the ferry for Elizabethtown.
When young Edwards began life as a tanner it took twelve months for the tanning of hides. This was by far the most extensive tannery in America. It had a capacity of 1,500 sides. The only "improvement" then known—1784—was the use of a wooden plug in the lime vats and water pools to let off the contents into the brook. The bark was ground by horse power. There was a curb fifteen feet in diameter, made of three-inch plank, with a rim fifteen inches high. Within this was a stone wheel with many hollows and the wooden wheel with long pegs. Two horses turned these wheels which would grind half a cord of bark in a day of twelve hours. The first year William was at work grinding bark. All the pay received for the year's work was the knowledge gained of the art of grinding bark, very poor board (no clothing, no money), and the privilege of tanning for himself three sheep skins. The fourth half year he received his first money, $2.50 a month, which was paid out of friendliness for the Edwards family.
Before he was twenty he set up in business for himself. He had saved $100; his father, still poor, gave him $300; he bought land for his plant for $700 on long credit. After years of great struggle he succeeded in business and developed the process by which instead of employing one hand for every one hundred sides he could tan 40,000 with twenty lads and the cost was reduced from twelve cents a pound to four cents. The quality was improved even more than the cost was reduced. When the war of 1812 broke out he had practically the only important tannery in the United States, but the war scare and attendant evils led to his failure in 1815. He was now 45 years old with a wife and nine children. He went to work in a factory for day wages to keep his family supplied with the necessities of life. By some misunderstanding and a combination of law suits his patents were lost to him.
When Colonel Edwards failed in 1815 he owed considerable sums of money and nine years later the courts released him from all obligations, yet between the age of 69 and 75 he paid every cent of this indebtedness amounting to $25,924.