flour to Springfield and let the government have it for paper money at par. There were no greater heroes in the Revolutionary war than such men as Timothy Edwards. He was nearly fifty years old when the war closed and he found himself the father of thirteen children and without property or business. Full of courage and enterprise he succeeded in supporting his family in comfort and in regaining a substantial property before his death, which occurred in the midst of the next war, October 27, 1813.

It was not an easy thing to educate children in those times. When the Revolutionary war broke out his oldest child was but thirteen, and when it ended he had ten children under twenty-one. There were only three books in the schools at Stockbridge during the war, Dilworth's Spelling Book and Arithmetic and the Book of Psalms. From these the children of Timothy Edwards received their education and that it was a good training subsequent events show.

The first born, a daughter, married Benjamin Chaplin, Jr., a graduate of Yale (1778), and for her second husband Capt. Dan Tyler, of Brookline, Ct., a graduate of Harvard. Her second child, Edward, became Register of Probate. Jonathan, the second born, had several children who became prominent in professional and business life. Phoebe married Rev. Asahel Hooker, an eminent graduate of Yale, and for her second husband Rev. Samuel Farrer, a graduate of Harvard, and for many years treasurer

and financial agent of Andover Theological Seminary. Her children were noted men and women, graduates of Yale and Dartmouth, clergymen, theological professors, secretary of the American Board of Foreign Missions, and secretary American Baptist Missionary Union, prominent teachers and authors.

Rhoda Edwards, another of Timothy's daughters, married Col. Josiah Dwight, of Springfield. Among their fifteen children and their descendants are the founder of a famous young ladies' school at Lenox; an author of "Spanish Conquest of America," and five other considerable works; clerk of supreme court of Massachusetts; a Boston lawyer, graduate of Harvard; an eminent linguist and graduate of Harvard; music teacher in New York City, educated in Germany; St. Louis lawyer, graduate of Harvard college and law school, who studied in Germany; major in Civil war, wounded at Antietam; hospital nurse in Civil war; graduate of Yale; graduate of Cambridge, Eng., and author of "Five Years in an English University;" a graduate of Amherst and Andover, and missionary in Southern India; lawyer in Springfield; eminent teacher at Northampton; leading physician at Northampton; leading physician at New Bedford; supt. Pacific Mail Steamship Company; merchant in New York; insurance manager, New York; author of "Greece and Roman Mythology," and five other important works; supt. Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton R. R.; a New York lawyer and graduate of Yale; author of "History of Virginia," and two other works; graduate Dart

mouth and Andover; assistant, surgeon U. S. Navy; and an officer in Civil war, who fought in thirty battles.

Mary Edwards, another daughter of Timothy, married Mason Whiting, District Attorney of New York, and member of New York Legislature. In this family of eight children and their descendants are an authoress; a colonel in Civil war; treasurer American Missionary Association; Rev. W. S. Tyler, D. D., LL. D., a graduate of Amherst and Andover, professor of Greek for fifty years at Amherst; Col. Mason Whiting Tyler, graduate of Amherst, gallant soldier in Civil war; Wm. W. Tyler, graduate of Amherst, manufacturer of famous Turbine Water Wheels; Henry Mather Tyler, graduate of Amherst, professor of Greek at Knox College, pastor at Galesburg, Fitchburg and Worcester, and professor of Greek at Smith College; John Mason Tyler, graduate of Amherst and Union Theological Seminary, studied at Gothenburg and Leipsic, professor of Biology at Amherst and eminent lecturer.

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