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.