EDISON'S PEDIGREE
THOMAS ALVA EDISON was born at Milan Ohio, February 11, 1847. The State
that rivals Virginia as a "Mother of Presidents" has evidently other
titles to distinction of the same nature. For picturesque detail it
would not be easy to find any story excelling that of the Edison family
before it reached the Western Reserve. The story epitomizes American
idealism, restlessness, freedom of individual opinion, and ready
adjustment to the surrounding conditions of pioneer life. The ancestral
Edisons who came over from Holland, as nearly as can be determined, in
1730, were descendants of extensive millers on the Zuyder Zee, and took
up patents of land along the Passaic River, New Jersey, close to the
home that Mr. Edison established in the Orange Mountains a hundred and
sixty years later. They landed at Elizabethport, New Jersey, and first
settled near Caldwell in that State, where some graves of the family may
still be found. President Cleveland was born in that quiet hamlet. It is
a curious fact that in the Edison family the pronunciation of the name
has always been with the long "e" sound, as it would naturally be in
the Dutch language. The family prospered and must have enjoyed public
confidence, for we find the name of Thomas Edison, as a bank official on
Manhattan Island, signed to Continental currency in 1778. According
to the family records this Edison, great-grandfather of Thomas Alva,
reached the extreme old age of 104 years. But all was not well, and,
as has happened so often before, the politics of father and son were
violently different. The Loyalist movement that took to Nova Scotia so
many Americans after the War of Independence carried with it John, the
son of this stalwart Continental. Thus it came about that Samuel Edison,
son of John, was born at Digby, Nova Scotia, in 1804. Seven years later
John Edison who, as a Loyalist or United Empire emigrant, had become
entitled under the laws of Canada to a grant of six hundred acres of
land, moved westward to take possession of this property. He made his
way through the State of New York in wagons drawn by oxen to the remote
and primitive township of Bayfield, in Upper Canada, on Lake Huron.
Although the journey occurred in balmy June, it was necessarily attended
with difficulty and privation; but the new home was situated in good
farming country, and once again this interesting nomadic family settled
down.
John Edison moved from Bayfield to Vienna, Ontario, on the northern bank
of Lake Erie. Mr. Edison supplies an interesting reminiscence of the old
man and his environment in those early Canadian days. "When I was five
years old I was taken by my father and mother on a visit to Vienna. We
were driven by carriage from Milan, Ohio, to a railroad, then to a
port on Lake Erie, thence by a canal-boat in a tow of several to Port
Burwell, in Canada, across the lake, and from there we drove to Vienna,
a short distance away. I remember my grandfather perfectly as he
appeared, at 102 years of age, when he died. In the middle of the day
he sat under a large tree in front of the house facing a well-travelled
road. His head was covered completely with a large quantity of very
white hair, and he chewed tobacco incessantly, nodding to friends as
they passed by. He used a very large cane, and walked from the chair to
the house, resenting any assistance. I viewed him from a distance, and
could never get very close to him. I remember some large pipes, and
especially a molasses jug, a trunk, and several other things that came
from Holland."
John Edison was long-lived, like his father, and reached the ripe old
age of 102, leaving his son Samuel charged with the care of the family
destinies, but with no great burden of wealth. Little is known of the
early manhood of this father of T. A. Edison until we find him keeping a
hotel at Vienna, marrying a school-teacher there (Miss Nancy Elliott, in
1828), and taking a lively share in the troublous politics of the time.
He was six feet in height, of great bodily vigor, and of such personal
dominance of character that he became a captain of the insurgent forces
rallying under the banners of Papineau and Mackenzie. The opening
years of Queen Victoria's reign witnessed a belated effort in Canada
to emphasize the principle that there should not be taxation without
representation; and this descendant of those who had left the United
States from disapproval of such a doctrine, flung himself headlong into
its support.
It has been said of Earl Durham, who pacified Canada at this time and
established the present system of government, that he made a country
and marred a career. But the immediate measures of repression enforced
before a liberal policy was adopted were sharp and severe, and Samuel
Edison also found his own career marred on Canadian soil as one result
of the Durham administration. Exile to Bermuda with other insurgents was
not so attractive as the perils of a flight to the United States. A very
hurried departure was effected in secret from the scene of trouble, and
there are romantic traditions of his thrilling journey of one hundred
and eighty-two miles toward safety, made almost entirely without food
or sleep, through a wild country infested with Indians of unfriendly
disposition. Thus was the Edison family repatriated by a picturesque
political episode, and the great inventor given a birthplace on American
soil, just as was Benjamin Franklin when his father came from England
to Boston. Samuel Edison left behind him, however, in Canada, several
brothers, all of whom lived to the age of ninety or more, and from whom
there are descendants in the region.
After some desultory wanderings for a year or two along the shores of
Lake Erie, among the prosperous towns then springing up, the family,
with its Canadian home forfeited, and in quest of another resting-place,
came to Milan, Ohio, in 1842. That pretty little village offered at the
moment many attractions as a possible Chicago. The railroad system of
Ohio was still in the future, but the Western Reserve had already become
a vast wheat-field, and huge quantities of grain from the central and
northern counties sought shipment to Eastern ports. The Huron River,
emptying into Lake Erie, was navigable within a few miles of the
village, and provided an admirable outlet. Large granaries were
established, and proved so successful that local capital was tempted
into the project of making a tow-path canal from Lockwood Landing all
the way to Milan itself. The quaint old Moravian mission and quondam
Indian settlement of one hundred inhabitants found itself of a sudden
one of the great grain ports of the world, and bidding fair to rival
Russian Odessa. A number of grain warehouses, or primitive elevators,
were built along the bank of the canal, and the produce of the region
poured in immediately, arriving in wagons drawn by four or six horses
with loads of a hundred bushels. No fewer than six hundred wagons came
clattering in, and as many as twenty sail vessels were loaded with
thirty-five thousand bushels of grain, during a single day. The canal
was capable of being navigated by craft of from two hundred to two
hundred and fifty tons burden, and the demand for such vessels soon
led to the development of a brisk ship-building industry, for which
the abundant forests of the region supplied the necessary lumber. An
evidence of the activity in this direction is furnished by the fact that
six revenue cutters were launched at this port in these brisk days of
its prime.
Samuel Edison, versatile, buoyant of temper, and ever optimistic, would
thus appear to have pitched his tent with shrewd judgment. There was
plenty of occupation ready to his hand, and more than one enterprise
received his attention; but he devoted his energies chiefly to the
making of shingles, for which there was a large demand locally and along
the lake. Canadian lumber was used principally in this industry. The
wood was imported in "bolts" or pieces three feet long. A bolt made two
shingles; it was sawn asunder by hand, then split and shaved. None but
first-class timber was used, and such shingles outlasted far those made
by machinery with their cross-grain cut. A house in Milan, on which some
of those shingles were put in 1844, was still in excellent condition
forty-two years later. Samuel Edison did well at this occupation, and
employed several men, but there were other outlets from time to time for
his business activity and speculative disposition.
Edison's mother was an attractive and highly educated woman, whose
influence upon his disposition and intellect has been profound and
lasting. She was born in Chenango County, New York, in 1810, and was the
daughter of the Rev. John Elliott, a Baptist minister and descendant of
an old Revolutionary soldier, Capt. Ebenezer Elliott, of Scotch descent.
The old captain was a fine and picturesque type. He fought all through
the long War of Independence--seven years--and then appears to have
settled down at Stonington, Connecticut. There, at any rate, he found
his wife, "grandmother Elliott," who was Mercy Peckham, daughter of a
Scotch Quaker. Then came the residence in New York State, with final
removal to Vienna, for the old soldier, while drawing his pension at
Buffalo, lived in the little Canadian town, and there died, over 100
years old. The family was evidently one of considerable culture and deep
religious feeling, for two of Mrs. Edison's uncles and two brothers were
also in the same Baptist ministry. As a young woman she became a teacher
in the public high school at Vienna, and thus met her husband, who was
residing there. The family never consisted of more than three children,
two boys and a girl. A trace of the Canadian environment is seen in the
fact that Edison's elder brother was named William Pitt, after the
great English statesman. Both his brother and the sister exhibited
considerable ability. William Pitt Edison as a youth was so clever with
his pencil that it was proposed to send him to Paris as an art student.
In later life he was manager of the local street railway lines at Port
Huron, Michigan, in which he was heavily interested. He also owned a
good farm near that town, and during the ill-health at the close of
his life, when compelled to spend much of the time indoors, he devoted
himself almost entirely to sketching. It has been noted by intimate
observers of Thomas A. Edison that in discussing any project or new idea
his first impulse is to take up any piece of paper available and make
drawings of it. His voluminous note-books are a mass of sketches.
Mrs-Tannie Edison Bailey, the sister, had, on the other hand, a great
deal of literary ability, and spent much of her time in writing.
The great inventor, whose iron endurance and stern will have enabled him
to wear down all his associates by work sustained through arduous days
and sleepless nights, was not at all strong as a child, and was of
fragile appearance. He had an abnormally large but well-shaped head, and
it is said that the local doctors feared he might have brain trouble.
In fact, on account of his assumed delicacy, he was not allowed to go to
school for some years, and even when he did attend for a short time
the results were not encouraging--his mother being hotly indignant upon
hearing that the teacher had spoken of him to an inspector as "addled."
The youth was, indeed, fortunate far beyond the ordinary in having a
mother at once loving, well-informed, and ambitious, capable herself,
from her experience as a teacher, of undertaking and giving him an
education better than could be secured in the local schools of the day.
Certain it is that under this simple regime studious habits were formed
and a taste for literature developed that have lasted to this day. If
ever there was a man who tore the heart out of books it is Edison, and
what has once been read by him is never forgotten if useful or worthy of
submission to the test of experiment.
But even thus early the stronger love of mechanical processes and of
probing natural forces manifested itself. Edison has said that he
never saw a statement in any book as to such things that he did not
involuntarily challenge, and wish to demonstrate as either right or
wrong. As a mere child the busy scenes of the canal and the grain
warehouses were of consuming interest, but the work in the ship-building
yards had an irresistible fascination. His questions were so ceaseless
and innumerable that the penetrating curiosity of an unusually strong
mind was regarded as deficiency in powers of comprehension, and the
father himself, a man of no mean ingenuity and ability, reports that
the child, although capable of reducing him to exhaustion by endless
inquiries, was often spoken of as rather wanting in ordinary acumen.
This apparent dulness is, however, a quite common incident to youthful
genius.
The constructive tendencies of this child of whom his father said once
that he had never had any boyhood days in the ordinary sense, were early
noted in his fondness for building little plank roads out of the debris
of the yards and mills. His extraordinarily retentive memory was shown
in his easy acquisition of all the songs of the lumber gangs and canal
men before he was five years old. One incident tells how he was found
one day in the village square copying laboriously the signs of the
stores. A highly characteristic event at the age of six is described by
his sister. He had noted a goose sitting on her eggs and the result. One
day soon after, he was missing. By-and-by, after an anxious search, his
father found him sitting in a nest he had made in the barn, filled with
goose-eggs and hens' eggs he had collected, trying to hatch them out.
One of Mr. Edison's most vivid recollections goes back to 1850, when as
a child three of four years old he saw camped in front of his home six
covered wagons, "prairie schooners," and witnessed their departure for
California. The great excitement over the gold discoveries was thus felt
in Milan, and these wagons, laden with all the worldly possessions of
their owners, were watched out of sight on their long journey by this
fascinated urchin, whose own discoveries in later years were to tempt
many other argonauts into the auriferous realms of electricity.
Another vivid memory of this period concerns his first realization
of the grim mystery of death. He went off one day with the son of
the wealthiest man in the town to bathe in the creek. Soon after they
entered the water the other boy disappeared. Young Edison waited around
the spot for half an hour or more, and then, as it was growing dark,
went home puzzled and lonely, but silent as to the occurrence. About two
hours afterward, when the missing boy was being searched for, a man came
to the Edison home to make anxious inquiry of the companion with whom
he had last been seen. Edison told all the circumstances with a painful
sense of being in some way implicated. The creek was at once dragged,
and then the body was recovered.
Edison had himself more than one narrow escape. Of course he fell in the
canal and was nearly drowned; few boys in Milan worth their salt omitted
that performance. On another occasion he encountered a more novel peril
by falling into the pile of wheat in a grain elevator and being almost
smothered. Holding the end of a skate-strap for another lad to shorten
with an axe, he lost the top of a finger. Fire also had its perils. He
built a fire in a barn, but the flames spread so rapidly that, although
he escaped himself, the barn was wholly destroyed, and he was publicly
whipped in the village square as a warning to other youths. Equally well
remembered is a dangerous encounter with a ram that attacked him while
he was busily engaged digging out a bumblebee's nest near an orchard
fence. The animal knocked him against the fence, and was about to butt
him again when he managed to drop over on the safe side and escape. He
was badly hurt and bruised, and no small quantity of arnica was needed
for his wounds.
Meantime little Milan had reached the zenith of its prosperity, and all
of a sudden had been deprived of its flourishing grain trade by the new
Columbus, Sandusky & Hocking Railroad; in fact, the short canal was one
of the last efforts of its kind in this country to compete with the
new means of transportation. The bell of the locomotive was everywhere
ringing the death-knell of effective water haulage, with such dire
results that, in 1880, of the 4468 miles of American freight canal, that
had cost $214,000,000, no fewer than 1893 miles had been abandoned,
and of the remaining 2575 miles quite a large proportion was not paying
expenses. The short Milan canal suffered with the rest, and to-day
lies well-nigh obliterated, hidden in part by vegetable gardens, a mere
grass-grown depression at the foot of the winding, shallow valley. Other
railroads also prevented any further competition by the canal, for a
branch of the Wheeling & Lake Erie now passes through the village, while
the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern runs a few miles to the south.
The owners of the canal soon had occasion to regret that they had
disdained the overtures of enterprising railroad promoters desirous
of reaching the village, and the consequences of commercial isolation
rapidly made themselves felt. It soon became evident to Samuel Edison
and his wife that the cozy brick home on the bluff must be given up
and the struggle with fortune resumed elsewhere. They were well-to-do,
however, and removing, in 1854, to Port Huron, Michigan, occupied a
large colonial house standing in the middle of an old Government fort
reservation of ten acres overlooking the wide expanse of the St. Clair
River just after it leaves Lake Huron. It was in many ways an ideal
homestead, toward which the family has always felt the strongest
attachment, but the association with Milan has never wholly ceased. The
old house in which Edison was born is still occupied (in 1910) by Mr.
S. O. Edison, a half-brother of Edison's father, and a man of marked
inventive ability. He was once prominent in the iron-furnace industry of
Ohio, and was for a time associated in the iron trade with the father
of the late President McKinley. Among his inventions may be mentioned a
machine for making fuel from wheat straw, and a smoke-consuming device.
This birthplace of Edison remains the plain, substantial little brick
house it was originally: one-storied, with rooms finished on the attic
floor. Being built on the hillside, its basement opens into the rear
yard. It was at first heated by means of open coal grates, which may not
have been altogether adequate in severe winters, owing to the altitude
and the north-eastern exposure, but a large furnace is one of the more
modern changes. Milan itself is not materially unlike the smaller Ohio
towns of its own time or those of later creation, but the venerable
appearance of the big elm-trees that fringe the trim lawns tells of its
age. It is, indeed, an extremely neat, snug little place, with well-kept
homes, mostly of frame construction, and flagged streets crossing
each other at right angles. There are no poor--at least, everybody is
apparently well-to-do. While a leisurely atmosphere pervades the
town, few idlers are seen. Some of the residents are engaged in local
business; some are occupied in farming and grape culture; others are
employed in the iron-works near-by, at Norwalk. The stores and places
of public resort are gathered about the square, where there is plenty
of room for hitching when the Saturday trading is done at that point,
at which periods the fitful bustle recalls the old wheat days when young
Edison ran with curiosity among the six and eight horse teams that had
brought in grain. This square is still covered with fine primeval forest
trees, and has at its centre a handsome soldiers' monument of the Civil
War, to which four paved walks converge. It is an altogether pleasant
and unpretentious town, which cherishes with no small amount of pride
its association with the name of Thomas Alva Edison.
In view of Edison's Dutch descent, it is rather singular to find him
with the name of Alva, for the Spanish Duke of Alva was notoriously the
worst tyrant ever known to the Low Countries, and his evil deeds occupy
many stirring pages in Motley's famous history. As a matter of fact,
Edison was named after Capt. Alva Bradley, an old friend of his father,
and a celebrated ship-owner on the Lakes. Captain Bradley died a few
years ago in wealth, while his old associate, with equal ability for
making money, was never able long to keep it (differing again from the
Revolutionary New York banker from whom his son's other name, "Thomas,"
was taken).