francis dean, who started tredegar, had a good amount of imagination but not a good businessman. the company was running into financial trouble. they hired joseph anderson, a native of the county, a west point graduate and an engineer. he was brought in initially in 1841 as a purchasing agent, a sales manager but also running a lot of their financial books. within a couple of years he actually started to lease the entire operation from the stockholders. in 1849 he purchased the site outright and became the sole proprietor. when tredegar first started, present was a small industrial town. it had some industry, tredegar but as grew -- but as tredegar group, richmond group. by 1860 tredegar was the third-largest ironworks in united states, the largest in the south and richmond with the industrial hub of lower become the southern confederacy. the primary workhorse was a lot of welshman who came over. that was the nucleus of their skilled workforce. another side was the industrial slaves. sometimes the owners of tredegar would purchase slaves and their names, sometimes it would rent t