AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 531 



jnerly been softened by the stone-wheel ; in place of this Col. Edwards 

 erected a hide-mill similar to that used in fulling cloth. 



Perceiving the great difference between the rough surface of sole leather 

 as it left the tannery, and its hard smooth surface after it had been under 

 the lap-stone of the shoemaker, he determined to effect that change at the 

 tannery, and the result of his experiments was the rolling mill. 



This consists of a brass roller about six or eight inches in length, by four 

 or five inches in diameter, attached to the end of a vibrating pendulum, 

 which was held by a spring a few inches above a bed-plate of the hardest 

 wood, having a curved surface, corresponding to the radius of the pendu- 

 lum; under this bed-plate, which was three or four feet from the floor, a 

 long lever was placed, so as to be used by the foot of the operator; it was 

 connected with the top of the pendulum by a vertical iron rod. The pen- 

 dulum was held in guides, so as to vibrate in a right line, and by means of 

 a horizontal connecting rod, was attached to the crank on the top of a ver- 

 tical shaft driven by water-power. When the side of leather was placed 

 upon the bed-plate, the operator, by means of the lever, brought the vibrat- 

 ing roller down upon the leather with immense pressure ; he moved the 

 leather while the roller continued to vibrate, by raising his foot from the 

 lever, and thus the whole side was soon passed over, and rendered harder 

 and smoother than it could possibly be by hand. This form of machine 

 has been in use by the trade more than sixty years. Edwards soon after, 

 in conjunction with others, erected two more tanneries, at Cunningham and 

 ' Chester, and about the same time he sent an enterprizing young man to 

 act as his agent at New York in the sale of leather, at a salary of $1,000 

 a year, who soon rose to notice there. He took a prominent rank in the 

 trade, finally acquired a large fortune, and for many years he was the lead- 

 ing leather dealer in the Swamp. This gentleman was the late Gideon 

 Lee, formerly mayor of New York. 



In the year 1811 Edwards met with another serious loss by fire, and after, 

 various attempts to recover himself, he was finally, in 1815, compelled to 

 assign all his efi"ects for the benefit of creditors. In this emergency he 

 cast about for a new location for a tannery on a still more extended scale. 

 The vast forests of hemlock on the Catskill Mountains, and their proximity 

 to the Hudson River, soon attracted his attention. At once the plan was 

 matured, and with the help of his young friend, Gideon Lee, and another 

 well known leather dealer, Jacob Lorillard, he was enabled to construct at 

 Hunter, Greene county, the most complete tannery, entirely under cover, 

 the world had thus far seen. 



To his former improvements he there added the elevator and conveyer, 

 by which the ground bark was delivered by machinery directly into the 

 leaches. In this he followed in the footsteps of the great inventor, Oliver 

 Evans, of Pliilauelphia, who, just at the close of the revolution, had made 

 the common flour mill automatic. 



Thus, amid the grand old woods of Greene county, this eminent man con- 

 tinued his career for many years, happy only in making more perfect a sys- 



