Background
William Edwards was born in Elizabethtown, N. J. , the sixth child of Timothy and Rhoda (Ogden) Edwards. His father was the oldest son of Rev. Jonathan Edwards and a brother of Jonathan and Pierpont Edwards.
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WILLIAM EDWARDS
Edit ProfileEducation
William attended school until he was twelve and then assisted on his father’s farm until he was fourteen.
Career
In that year he returned to Elizabethtown to learn the tanning trade with his uncle who was conducting the business established by William’s maternal grandfather.
The work affected his health, and after a year he went back to Stockbridge and remained on the farm until 1787 when he again returned to Elizabethtown, finishing his apprenticeship in 1789.
After serving about a year at his trade in East Haddam, Connecticut, he went to Northampton, Massachusetts, and with the aid of friends built a tannery there.
In this plant he incorporated improvements in arrangement, partially reducing the manual labor involved in the process.
When the plant burned down in 1799, a new one was immediately built in which he added still other improvements, chiefly through the use of water power and in heating the leaching liquors.
The industrial collapse following the War of 1812, coupled with financial manipulations by Edwards’s backers, brought about his complete bankruptcy in 1815.
Two years later, however, with the assistance of his sons and New York friends in the leather business, he began anew at Hunter, Greene County, New York, and built what was for years the largest tannery in the United States.
This was burned down in 1830 but was immediately rebuilt, and four years later Edwards retired and removed to Brooklyn, New York.
He served in a Berkshire regiment in 1786 during the Shays Rebellion; joined a grenadier militia company while in Elizabethtown; was captain in 1800 and later was colonel in the regular Massachusetts militia, and commanded a regiment of artillery at Boston in 1813.
He also repeatedly represented Northampton in the General Court.
Achievements
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During the succeeding fifteen years this business grew rapidly and a company was organized and incorporated, and one by one five tanneries were put in operation about Northampton. As each was built the newest inventions of Edwards were installed. These included rollers for preparing leather "and a hide mill for softening dry leather, patented Oct. 19 and Dec. 30, 1812, respectively, and an improved sole leather tanning process, patented on the latter date. The importance of his improvements can probably be gauged best from the fact that with them the cost of tanning sole leather was reduced from twelve cents to four cents a pound.
Interests
Connections
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Born
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Died
February 29, 1851 (aged 81) -
Nationality
American