THE FIRST EDISON CENTRAL STATION
A NOTED inventor once said at the end of a lifetime of fighting to
defend his rights, that he found there were three stages in all great
inventions: the first, in which people said the thing could not be done;
the second, in which they said anybody could do it; and the third,
in which they said it had always been done by everybody. In his
central-station work Edison has had very much this kind of experience;
for while many of his opponents came to acknowledge the novelty and
utility of his plans, and gave him unstinted praise, there are doubtless
others who to this day profess to look upon him merely as an adapter.
How different the view of so eminent a scientist as Lord Kelvin was,
may be appreciated from his remark when in later years, in reply to the
question why some one else did not invent so obvious and simple a thing
as the Feeder System, he said: "The only answer I can think of is that
no one else was Edison."
Undaunted by the attitude of doubt and the predictions of impossibility,
Edison had pushed on until he was now able to realize all his ideas as
to the establishment of a central station in the work that culminated
in New York City in 1882. After he had conceived the broad plan, his
ambition was to create the initial plant on Manhattan Island, where it
would be convenient of access for watching its operation, and where the
demonstration of its practicability would have influence in financial
circles. The first intention was to cover a district extending from
Canal Street on the north to Wall Street on the south; but Edison
soon realized that this territory was too extensive for the initial
experiment, and he decided finally upon the district included between
Wall, Nassau, Spruce, and Ferry streets, Peck Slip and the East River,
an area nearly a square mile in extent. One of the preliminary steps
taken to enable him to figure on such a station and system was to have
men go through this district on various days and note the number of gas
jets burning at each hour up to two or three o'clock in the morning. The
next step was to divide the region into a number of sub-districts and
institute a house-to-house canvass to ascertain precisely the data and
conditions pertinent to the project. When the canvass was over, Edison
knew exactly how many gas jets there were in every building in the
entire district, the average hours of burning, and the cost of light;
also every consumer of power, and the quantity used; every hoistway to
which an electric motor could be applied; and other details too numerous
to mention, such as related to the gas itself, the satisfaction of
the customers, and the limitations of day and night demand. All this
information was embodied graphically in large maps of the district, by
annotations in colored inks; and Edison thus could study the question
with every detail before him. Such a reconnaissance, like that of a
coming field of battle, was invaluable, and may help give a further idea
of the man's inveterate care for the minutiae of things.
The laboratory note-books of this period--1878-80, more
particularly--show an immense amount of calculation by Edison and his
chief mathematician, Mr. Upton, on conductors for the distribution of
current over large areas, and then later in the district described.
With the results of this canvass before them, the sizes of the main
conductors to be laid throughout the streets of this entire territory
were figured, block by block; and the results were then placed on the
map. These data revealed the fact that the quantity of copper required
for the main conductors would be exceedingly large and costly; and,
if ever, Edison was somewhat dismayed. But as usual this apparently
insurmountable difficulty only spurred him on to further effort. It
was but a short time thereafter that he solved the knotty problem by an
invention mentioned in a previous chapter. This is known as the "feeder
and main" system, for which he signed the application for a patent on
August 4, 1880. As this invention effected a saving of seven-eighths of
the cost of the chief conductors in a straight multiple arc system, the
mains for the first district were refigured, and enormous new maps were
made, which became the final basis of actual installation, as they were
subsequently enlarged by the addition of every proposed junction-box,
bridge safety-catch box, and street-intersection box in the whole area.
When this patent, after protracted fighting, was sustained by Judge
Green in 1893, the Electrical Engineer remarked that the General
Electric Company "must certainly feel elated" because of its importance;
and the journal expressed its fear that although the specifications and
claims related only to the maintenance of uniform pressure of current on
lighting circuits, the owners might naturally seek to apply it also to
feeders used in the electric-railway work already so extensive. At this
time, however, the patent had only about a year of life left, owing
to the expiration of the corresponding English patent. The fact that
thirteen years had elapsed gives a vivid idea of the ordeal involved in
sustaining a patent and the injustice to the inventor, while there is
obviously hardship to those who cannot tell from any decision of the
court whether they are infringing or not. It is interesting to note that
the preparation for hearing this case in New Jersey was accompanied by
models to show the court exactly the method and its economy, as
worked out in comparison with what is known as the "tree system"
of circuits--the older alternative way of doing it. As a basis of
comparison, a district of thirty-six city blocks in the form of a square
was assumed. The power station was placed at the centre of the square;
each block had sixteen consumers using fifteen lights each. Conductors
were run from the station to supply each of the four quarters of the
district with light. In one example the "feeder" system was used; in
the other the "tree." With these models were shown two cubes which
represented one one-hundredth of the actual quantity of copper required
for each quarter of the district by the two-wire tree system as compared
with the feeder system under like conditions. The total weight of copper
for the four quarter districts by the tree system was 803,250 pounds,
but when the feeder system was used it was only 128,739 pounds! This
was a reduction from $23.24 per lamp for copper to $3.72 per lamp. Other
models emphasized this extraordinary contrast. At the time Edison was
doing this work on economizing in conductors, much of the criticism
against him was based on the assumed extravagant use of copper implied
in the obvious "tree" system, and it was very naturally said that there
was not enough copper in the world to supply his demands. It is true
that the modern electrical arts have been a great stimulator of copper
production, now taking a quarter of all made; yet evidently but for such
inventions as this such arts could not have come into existence at
all, or else in growing up they would have forced copper to starvation
prices. [11]
[Footnote 11: For description of feeder patent see
Appendix.]
It should be borne in mind that from the outset Edison had determined
upon installing underground conductors as the only permanent and
satisfactory method for the distribution of current from central
stations in cities; and that at Menlo Park he laid out and operated such
a system with about four hundred and twenty-five lamps. The underground
system there was limited to the immediate vicinity of the laboratory and
was somewhat crude, as well as much less complicated than would be the
network of over eighty thousand lineal feet, which he calculated to be
required for the underground circuits in the first district of New York
City. At Menlo Park no effort was made for permanency; no provision
was needed in regard to occasional openings of the street for various
purposes; no new customers were to be connected from time to time to
the mains, and no repairs were within contemplation. In New York the
question of permanency was of paramount importance, and the other
contingencies were sure to arise as well as conditions more easy
to imagine than to forestall. These problems were all attacked in a
resolute, thoroughgoing manner, and one by one solved by the invention
of new and unprecedented devices that were adequate for the purposes of
the time, and which are embodied in apparatus of slight modification in
use up to the present day.
Just what all this means it is hard for the present generation to
imagine. New York and all the other great cities in 1882, and for
some years thereafter, were burdened and darkened by hideous masses
of overhead wires carried on ugly wooden poles along all the main
thoroughfares. One after another rival telegraph and telephone, stock
ticker, burglar-alarm, and other companies had strung their circuits
without any supervision or restriction; and these wires in all
conditions of sag or decay ramified and crisscrossed in every direction,
often hanging broken and loose-ended for months, there being no official
compulsion to remove any dead wire. None of these circuits carried
dangerous currents; but the introduction of the arc light brought an
entirely new menace in the use of pressures that were even worse than
the bully of the West who "kills on sight," because this kindred peril
was invisible, and might lurk anywhere. New poles were put up, and
the lighting circuits on them, with but a slight insulation of cotton
impregnated with some "weather-proof" compound, straggled all over the
city exposed to wind and rain and accidental contact with other wires,
or with the metal of buildings. So many fatalities occurred that the
insulated wire used, called "underwriters," because approved by the
insurance bodies, became jocularly known as "undertakers," and efforts
were made to improve its protective qualities. Then came the overhead
circuits for distributing electrical energy to motors for operating
elevators, driving machinery, etc., and these, while using a lower,
safer potential, were proportionately larger. There were no wires
underground. Morse had tried that at the very beginning of electrical
application, in telegraphy, and all agreed that renewals of the
experiment were at once costly and foolish. At last, in cities like
New York, what may be styled generically the "overhead system" of wires
broke down under its own weight; and various methods of underground
conductors were tried, hastened in many places by the chopping down of
poles and wires as the result of some accident that stirred the public
indignation. One typical tragic scene was that in New York, where,
within sight of the City Hall, a lineman was killed at his work on
the arc light pole, and his body slowly roasted before the gaze of the
excited populace, which for days afterward dropped its silver and copper
coin into the alms-box nailed to the fatal pole for the benefit of his
family. Out of all this in New York came a board of electrical
control, a conduit system, and in the final analysis the Public
Service Commission, that is credited to Governor Hughes as the furthest
development of utility corporation control.
The "road to yesterday" back to Edison and his insistence on underground
wires is a long one, but the preceding paragraph traces it. Even
admitting that the size and weight of his low-tension conductors
necessitated putting them underground, this argues nothing against the
propriety and sanity of his methods. He believed deeply and firmly in
the analogy between electrical supply and that for water and gas, and
pointed to the trite fact that nobody hoisted the water and gas mains
into the air on stilts, and that none of the pressures were inimical
to human safety. The arc-lighting methods were unconsciously and
unwittingly prophetic of the latter-day long-distance transmissions at
high pressure that, electrically, have placed the energy of Niagara at
the command of Syracuse and Utica, and have put the power of the falling
waters of the Sierras at the disposal of San Francisco, two hundred
miles away. But within city limits overhead wires, with such
space-consuming potentials, are as fraught with mischievous peril to the
public as the dynamite stored by a nonchalant contractor in the cellar
of a schoolhouse. As an offset, then, to any tendency to depreciate the
intrinsic value of Edison's lighting work, let the claim be here set
forth modestly and subject to interference, that he was the father of
underground wires in America, and by his example outlined the policy now
dominant in every city of the first rank. Even the comment of a cynic
in regard to electrical development may be accepted: "Some electrical
companies wanted all the air; others apparently had use for all the
water; Edison only asked for the earth."
The late Jacob Hess, a famous New York Republican politician, was a
member of the commission appointed to put the wires underground in New
York City, in the "eighties." He stated that when the commission was
struggling with the problem, and examining all kinds of devices and
plans, patented and unpatented, for which fabulous sums were often
asked, the body turned to Edison in its perplexity and asked for advice.
Edison said: "All you have to do, gentlemen, is to insulate your wires,
draw them through the cheapest thing on earth--iron pipe--run your pipes
through channels or galleries under the street, and you've got the whole
thing done." This was practically the system adopted and in use to
this day. What puzzled the old politician was that Edison would accept
nothing for his advice.
Another story may also be interpolated here as to the underground work
done in New York for the first Edison station. It refers to the "man
higher up," although the phrase had not been coined in those days
of lower public morality. That a corporation should be "held up" was
accepted philosophically by the corporation as one of the unavoidable
incidents of its business; and if the corporation "got back" by securing
some privilege without paying for it, the public was ready to condone
if not applaud. Public utilities were in the making, and no one in
particular had a keen sense of what was right or what was wrong, in
the hard, practical details of their development. Edison tells this
illuminating story: "When I was laying tubes in the streets of New York,
the office received notice from the Commissioner of Public Works to
appear at his office at a certain hour. I went up there with a gentleman
to see the Commissioner, H. O. Thompson. On arrival he said to me: 'You
are putting down these tubes. The Department of Public Works requires
that you should have five inspectors to look after this work, and that
their salary shall be $5 per day, payable at the end of each week.
Good-morning.' I went out very much crestfallen, thinking I would be
delayed and harassed in the work which I was anxious to finish, and
was doing night and day. We watched patiently for those inspectors to
appear. The only appearance they made was to draw their pay Saturday
afternoon."
Just before Christmas in 1880--December 17--as an item for the silk
stocking of Father Knickerbocker--the Edison Electric Illuminating
Company of New York was organized. In pursuance of the policy adhered
to by Edison, a license was issued to it for the exclusive use of
the system in that territory--Manhattan Island--in consideration of a
certain sum of money and a fixed percentage of its capital in stock for
the patent rights. Early in 1881 it was altogether a paper enterprise,
but events moved swiftly as narrated already, and on June 25, 1881,
the first "Jumbo" prototype of the dynamo-electric machines to generate
current at the Pearl Street station was put through its paces before
being shipped to Paris to furnish new sensations to the flaneur of the
boulevards. A number of the Edison officers and employees assembled at
Goerck Street to see this "gigantic" machine go into action, and watched
its performance with due reverence all through the night until five
o'clock on Sunday morning, when it respected the conventionalities by
breaking a shaft and suspending further tests. After this dynamo was
shipped to France, and its successors to England for the Holborn Viaduct
plant, Edison made still further improvements in design, increasing
capacity and economy, and then proceeded vigorously with six machines
for Pearl Street.
An ideal location for any central station is at the very centre of the
district served. It may be questioned whether it often goes there. In
the New York first district the nearest property available was a double
building at Nos. 255 and 257 Pearl Street, occupying a lot so by 100
feet. It was four stories high, with a fire-wall dividing it into
two equal parts. One of these parts was converted for the uses of the
station proper, and the other was used as a tube-shop by the underground
construction department, as well as for repair-shops, storage, etc.
Those were the days when no one built a new edifice for station
purposes; that would have been deemed a fantastic extravagance. One
early station in New York for arc lighting was an old soap-works whose
well-soaked floors did not need much additional grease to render them
choice fuel for the inevitable flames. In this Pearl Street instance,
the building, erected originally for commercial uses, was quite
incapable of sustaining the weight of the heavy dynamos and
steam-engines to be installed on the second floor; so the old flooring
was torn out and a new one of heavy girders supported by stiff columns
was substituted. This heavy construction, more familiar nowadays, and
not unlike the supporting metal structure of the Manhattan Elevated
road, was erected independent of the enclosing walls, and occupied the
full width of 257 Pearl Street, and about three-quarters of its depth.
This change in the internal arrangements did not at all affect the ugly
external appearance, which did little to suggest the stately and
ornate stations since put up by the New York Edison Company, the latest
occupying whole city blocks.
Of this episode Edison gives the following account: "While planning
for my first New York station--Pearl Street--of course, I had no real
estate, and from lack of experience had very little knowledge of its
cost in New York; so I assumed a rather large, liberal amount of it to
plan my station on. It occurred to me one day that before I went too far
with my plans I had better find out what real estate was worth. In my
original plan I had 200 by 200 feet. I thought that by going down on a
slum street near the water-front I would get some pretty cheap property.
So I picked out the worst dilapidated street there was, and found I
could only get two buildings, each 25 feet front, one 100 feet deep and
the other 85 feet deep. I thought about $10,000 each would cover it;
but when I got the price I found that they wanted $75,000 for one and
$80,000 for the other. Then I was compelled to change my plans and
go upward in the air where real estate was cheap. I cleared out the
building entirely to the walls and built my station of structural
ironwork, running it up high."
Into this converted structure was put the most complete steam plant
obtainable, together with all the mechanical and engineering adjuncts
bearing upon economical and successful operation. Being in a narrow
street and a congested district, the plant needed special facilities for
the handling of coal and ashes, as well as for ventilation and forced
draught. All of these details received Mr. Edison's personal care and
consideration on the spot, in addition to the multitude of other affairs
demanding his thought. Although not a steam or mechanical engineer, his
quick grasp of principles and omnivorous reading had soon supplied the
lack of training; nor had he forgotten the practical experience picked
up as a boy on the locomotives of the Grand Trunk road. It is to
be noticed as a feature of the plant, in common with many of later
construction, that it was placed well away from the water's edge,
and equipped with non-condensing engines; whereas the modern plant
invariably seeks the bank of a river or lake for the purpose of a
generous supply of water for its condensing engines or steam-turbines.
These are among the refinements of practice coincidental with the
advance of the art.
At the award of the John Fritz gold medal in April, 1909, to Charles T.
Porter for his work in advancing the knowledge of steam-engineering, and
for improvements in engine construction, Mr. Frank J. Sprague spoke on
behalf of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers of the debt of
electricity to the high-speed steam-engine. He recalled the fact that
at the French Exposition of 1867 Mr. Porter installed two Porter-Allen
engines to drive electric alternating-current generators for supplying
current to primitive lighthouse apparatus. While the engines were not
directly coupled to the dynamos, it was a curious fact that the piston
speeds and number of revolutions were what is common to-day in isolated
direct-coupled plants. In the dozen years following Mr. Porter built
many engines with certain common characteristics--i.e., high piston
speed and revolutions, solid engine bed, and babbitt-metal bearings; but
there was no electric driving until 1880, when Mr. Porter installed a
high-speed engine for Edison at his laboratory in Menlo Park. Shortly
after this he was invited to construct for the Edison Pearl Street
station the first of a series of engines for so-called "steam-dynamos,"
each independently driven by a direct-coupled engine. Mr. Sprague
compared the relations thus established between electricity and the
high-speed engine not to those of debtor and creditor, but rather to
those of partners--an industrial marriage--one of the most important
in the engineering world. Here were two machines destined to be joined
together, economizing space, enhancing economy, augmenting capacity,
reducing investment, and increasing dividends.
While rapid progress was being made in this and other directions, the
wheels of industry were humming merrily at the Edison Tube Works, for
over fifteen miles of tube conductors were required for the district,
besides the boxes to connect the network at the street intersections,
and the hundreds of junction boxes for taking the service conductors
into each of the hundreds of buildings. In addition to the immense
amount of money involved, this specialized industry required an enormous
amount of experiment, as it called for the development of an entirely
new art. But with Edison's inventive fertility--if ever there was a
cross-fertilizer of mechanical ideas it is he--and with Mr. Kruesi's
never-failing patience and perseverance applied to experiment and
evolution, rapid progress was made. A franchise having been obtained
from the city, the work of laying the underground conductors began in
the late fall of 1881, and was pushed with almost frantic energy. It
is not to be supposed, however, that the Edison tube system had then
reached a finality of perfection in the eyes of its inventor. In his
correspondence with Kruesi, as late as 1887, we find Edison bewailing
the inadequacy of the insulation of the conductors under twelve hundred
volts pressure, as for example: "Dear Kruesi,--There is nothing wrong
with your present compound. It is splendid. The whole trouble is
air-bubbles. The hotter it is poured the greater the amount of
air-bubbles. At 212 it can be put on rods and there is no bubble. I have
a man experimenting and testing all the time. Until I get at the proper
method of pouring and getting rid of the air-bubbles, it will be waste
of time to experiment with other asphalts. Resin oil distils off easily.
It may answer, but paraffine or other similar substances must be put in
to prevent brittleness, One thing is certain, and that is, everything
must be poured in layers, not only the boxes, but the tubes. The tube
itself should have a thin coating. The rope should also have a coating.
The rods also. The whole lot, rods and rope, when ready for tube, should
have another coat, and then be placed in tube and filled. This will
do the business." Broad and large as a continent in his ideas, if ever
there was a man of finical fussiness in attention to detail, it
is Edison. A letter of seven pages of about the same date in 1887
expatiates on the vicious troubles caused by the air-bubble, and remarks
with fine insight into the problems of insulation and the idea of layers
of it: "Thus you have three separate coatings, and it is impossible an
air-hole in one should match the other."
To a man less thorough and empirical in method than Edison, it would
have been sufficient to have made his plans clear to associates or
subordinates and hold them responsible for accurate results. No such
vicarious treatment would suit him, ready as he has always been to share
the work where he could give his trust. In fact he realized, as no
one else did at this stage, the tremendous import of this novel and
comprehensive scheme for giving the world light; and he would not let
go, even if busy to the breaking-point. Though plunged in a veritable
maelstrom of new and important business interests, and though applying
for no fewer than eighty-nine patents in 1881, all of which were
granted, he superintended on the spot all this laying of underground
conductors for the first district. Nor did he merely stand around and
give orders. Day and night he actually worked in the trenches with the
laborers, amid the dirt and paving-stones and hurry-burly of traffic,
helping to lay the tubes, filling up junction-boxes, and taking part in
all the infinite detail. He wanted to know for himself how things
went, why for some occult reason a little change was necessary, what
improvement could be made in the material. His hours of work were not
regulated by the clock, but lasted until he felt the need of a little
rest. Then he would go off to the station building in Pearl Street,
throw an overcoat on a pile of tubes, lie down and sleep for a few
hours, rising to resume work with the first gang. There was a small
bedroom on the third floor of the station available for him, but
going to bed meant delay and consumed time. It is no wonder that such
impatience, such an enthusiasm, drove the work forward at a headlong
pace.
Edison says of this period: "When we put down the tubes in the lower
part of New York, in the streets, we kept a big stock of them in the
cellar of the station at Pearl Street. As I was on all the time, I would
take a nap of an hour or so in the daytime--any time--and I used to
sleep on those tubes in the cellar. I had two Germans who were testing
there, and both of them died of diphtheria, caught in the cellar, which
was cold and damp. It never affected me."
It is worth pausing just a moment to glance at this man taking a fitful
rest on a pile of iron pipe in a dingy building. His name is on the
tip of the world's tongue. Distinguished scientists from every part of
Europe seek him eagerly. He has just been decorated and awarded high
honors by the French Government. He is the inventor of wonderful new
apparatus, and the exploiter of novel and successful arts. The magic of
his achievements and the rumors of what is being done have caused a wild
drop in gas securities, and a sensational rise in his own electric-light
stock from $100 to $3500 a share. Yet these things do not at all affect
his slumber or his democratic simplicity, for in that, as in everything
else, he is attending strictly to business, "doing the thing that is
next to him."
Part of the rush and feverish haste was due to the approach of frost,
which, as usual in New York, suspended operations in the earth; but the
laying of the conductors was resumed promptly in the spring of 1882; and
meantime other work had been advanced. During the fall and winter months
two more "Jumbo" dynamos were built and sent to London, after which the
construction of six for New York was swiftly taken in hand. In the month
of May three of these machines, each with a capacity of twelve hundred
incandescent lamps, were delivered at Pearl Street and assembled on the
second floor. On July 5th--owing to the better opportunity for ceaseless
toil given by a public holiday--the construction of the operative part
of the station was so far completed that the first of the dynamos
was operated under steam; so that three days later the satisfactory
experiment was made of throwing its flood of electrical energy into a
bank of one thousand lamps on an upper floor. Other tests followed in
due course. All was excitement. The field-regulating apparatus and the
electrical-pressure indicator--first of its kind--were also tested,
and in turn found satisfactory. Another vital test was made at this
time--namely, of the strength of the iron structure itself on which the
plant was erected. This was done by two structural experts; and not till
he got their report as to ample factors of safety was Edison reassured
as to this detail.
A remark of Edison, familiar to all who have worked with him, when it
is reported to him that something new goes all right and is satisfactory
from all points of view, is: "Well, boys, now let's find the bugs,"
and the hunt for the phylloxera begins with fiendish, remorseless zest.
Before starting the plant for regular commercial service, he began
personally a series of practical experiments and tests to ascertain in
advance what difficulties would actually arise in practice, so that he
could provide remedies or preventives. He had several cots placed in the
adjoining building, and he and a few of his most strenuous assistants
worked day and night, leaving the work only for hurried meals and a
snatch of sleep. These crucial tests, aiming virtually to break the
plant down if possible within predetermined conditions, lasted several
weeks, and while most valuable in the information they afforded, did
not hinder anything, for meantime customers' premises throughout the
district were being wired and supplied with lamps and meters.
On Monday, September 4, 1882, at 3 o'clock, P.M., Edison realized the
consummation of his broad and original scheme. The Pearl Street station
was officially started by admitting steam to the engine of one of the
"Jumbos," current was generated, turned into the network of underground
conductors, and was transformed into light by the incandescent lamps
that had thus far been installed. This date and event may properly be
regarded as historical, for they mark the practical beginning of a new
art, which in the intervening years has grown prodigiously, and is still
increasing by leaps and bounds.
Everything worked satisfactorily in the main. There were a few
mechanical and engineering annoyances that might naturally be expected
to arise in a new and unprecedented enterprise; but nothing of
sufficient moment to interfere with the steady and continuous supply
of current to customers at all hours of the day and night. Indeed, once
started, this station was operated uninterruptedly for eight years with
only insignificant stoppage.
It will have been noted by the reader that there was nothing to indicate
rashness in starting up the station, as only one dynamo was put in
operation. Within a short time, however, it was deemed desirable to
supply the underground network with more current, as many additional
customers had been connected and the demand for the new light was
increasing very rapidly. Although Edison had successfully operated
several dynamos in multiple arc two years before--i.e., all feeding
current together into the same circuits--there was not, at this early
period of experience, any absolute certainty as to what particular
results might occur upon the throwing of the current from two or more
such massive dynamos into a great distributing system. The sequel
showed the value of Edison's cautious method in starting the station by
operating only a single unit at first.
He decided that it would be wise to make the trial operation of a second
"Jumbo" on a Sunday, when business houses were closed in the district,
thus obviating any danger of false impressions in the public mind in the
event of any extraordinary manifestations. The circumstances attending
the adding of a second dynamo are thus humorously described by Edison:
"My heart was in my mouth at first, but everything worked all right....
Then we started another engine and threw them in parallel. Of all the
circuses since Adam was born, we had the worst then! One engine would
stop, and the other would run up to about a thousand revolutions, and
then they would see-saw. The trouble was with the governors. When
the circus commenced, the gang that was standing around ran out
precipitately, and I guess some of them kept running for a block or two.
I grabbed the throttle of one engine, and E. H. Johnson, who was the
only one present to keep his wits, caught hold of the other, and we shut
them off." One of the "gang" that ran, but, in this case, only to
the end of the room, afterward said: "At the time it was a terrifying
experience, as I didn't know what was going to happen. The engines and
dynamos made a horrible racket, from loud and deep groans to a hideous
shriek, and the place seemed to be filled with sparks and flames of all
colors. It was as if the gates of the infernal regions had been suddenly
opened."
This trouble was at once attacked by Edison in his characteristic and
strenuous way. The above experiment took place between three and four
o'clock on a Sunday afternoon, and within a few hours he had gathered
his superintendent and men of the machine-works and had them at work on
a shafting device that he thought would remedy the trouble. He says: "Of
course, I discovered that what had happened was that one set was running
the other as a motor. I then put up a long shaft, connecting all the
governors together, and thought this would certainly cure the trouble;
but it didn't. The torsion of the shaft was so great that one governor
still managed to get ahead of the others. Well, it was a serious state
of things, and I worried over it a lot. Finally I went down to Goerck
Street and got a piece of shafting and a tube in which it fitted. I
twisted the shafting one way and the tube the other as far as I could,
and pinned them together. In this way, by straining the whole outfit up
to its elastic limit in opposite directions, the torsion was practically
eliminated, and after that the governors ran together all right."
Edison realized, however, that in commercial practice this was only a
temporary expedient, and that a satisfactory permanence of results could
only be attained with more perfect engines that could be depended upon
for close and simple regulation. The engines that were made part of the
first three "Jumbos" placed in the station were the very best that could
be obtained at the time, and even then had been specially designed and
built for the purpose. Once more quoting Edison on this subject: "About
that time" (when he was trying to run several dynamos in parallel in the
Pearl Street station) "I got hold of Gardiner C. Sims, and he undertook
to build an engine to run at three hundred and fifty revolutions
and give one hundred and seventy-five horse-power. He went back to
Providence and set to work, and brought the engine back with him to the
shop. It worked only a few minutes when it busted. That man sat around
that shop and slept in it for three weeks, until he got his engine right
and made it work the way he wanted it to. When he reached this period
I gave orders for the engine-works to run night and day until we got
enough engines, and when all was ready we started the engines. Then
everything worked all right.... One of these engines that Sims built ran
twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days in the year,
for over a year before it stopped." [12]
[Footnote 12: We quote the following interesting notes of
Mr. Charles L. Clarke on the question of see-sawing, or
"hunting," as it was afterward termed:
"In the Holborn Viaduct station the difficulty of 'hunting' was not
experienced. At the time the 'Jumbos' were first operated in multiple
arc, April 8, 1882, one machine was driven by a Porter-Allen engine,
and the other by an Armington & Sims engine, and both machines were on
a solid foundation. At the station at Milan, Italy, the first 'Jumbos'
operated in multiple arc were driven by Porter-Allen engines, and
dash-pots were applied to the governors. These machines were also upon a
solid foundation, and no trouble was experienced.
"At the Pearl Street station, however, the machines were supported upon
long iron floor-beams, and at the high speed of 350 revolutions per
minute, considerable vertical vibration was given to the engines. And
the writer is inclined to the opinion that this vibration, acting in the
same direction as the action of gravitation, which was one of the two
controlling forces in the operation of the Porter-Allen governor, was
the primary cause of the 'hunting.' In the Armington & Sims engine the
controlling forces in the operation of the governor were the centrifugal
force of revolving weights, and the opposing force of compressed
springs, and neither the action of gravitation nor the vertical
vibrations of the engine could have any sensible effect upon the
governor."]
The Pearl Street station, as this first large plant was called, made
rapid and continuous growth in its output of electric current. It
started, as we have said, on September 4, 1882, supplying about four
hundred lights to a comparatively small number of customers. Among those
first supplied was the banking firm of Drexel, Morgan & Company, corner
of Broad and Wall streets, at the outermost limits of the system. Before
the end of December of the same year the light had so grown in favor
that it was being supplied to over two hundred and forty customers whose
buildings were wired for over five thousand lamps. By this time three
more "Jumbos" had been added to the plant. The output from this time
forward increased steadily up to the spring of 1884, when the demands of
the station necessitated the installation of two additional "Jumbos"
in the adjoining building, which, with the venous improvements that had
been made in the mean time, gave the station a capacity of over eleven
thousand lamps actually in service at any one time.
During the first three months of operating the Pearl Street station
light was supplied to customers without charge. Edison had perfect
confidence in his meters, and also in the ultimate judgment of the
public as to the superiority of the incandescent electric light as
against other illuminants. He realized, however, that in the beginning
of the operation of an entirely novel plant there was ample opportunity
for unexpected contingencies, although the greatest care had been
exercised to make everything as perfect as possible. Mechanical defects
or other unforeseen troubles in any part of the plant or underground
system might arise and cause temporary stoppages of operation, thus
giving grounds for uncertainty which would create a feeling of public
distrust in the permanence of the supply of light.
As to the kind of mishap that was wont to occur, Edison tells the
following story: "One afternoon, after our Pearl Street station started,
a policeman rushed in and told us to send an electrician at once up to
the corner of Ann and Nassau streets--some trouble. Another man and
I went up. We found an immense crowd of men and boys there and in
the adjoining streets--a perfect jam. There was a leak in one of our
junction-boxes, and on account of the cellars extending under the
street, the top soil had become insulated. Hence, by means of this leak
powerful currents were passing through this thin layer of moist earth.
When a horse went to pass over it he would get a very severe shock. When
I arrived I saw coming along the street a ragman with a dilapidated old
horse, and one of the boys told him to go over on the other side of
the road--which was the place where the current leaked. When the ragman
heard this he took that side at once. The moment the horse struck the
electrified soil he stood straight up in the air, and then reared again;
and the crowd yelled, the policeman yelled; and the horse started to run
away. This continued until the crowd got so serious that the policeman
had to clear it out; and we were notified to cut the current off. We got
a gang of men, cut the current off for several junction-boxes, and fixed
the leak. One man who had seen it came to me next day and wanted me to
put in apparatus for him at a place where they sold horses. He said he
could make a fortune with it, because he could get old nags in there and
make them act like thoroughbreds."
So well had the work been planned and executed, however, that nothing
happened to hinder the continuous working of the station and the supply
of light to customers. Hence it was decided in December, 1882, to begin
charging a price for the service, and, accordingly, Edison electrolytic
meters were installed on the premises of each customer then connected.
The first bill for lighting, based upon the reading of one of these
meters, amounted to $50.40, and was collected on January 18, 1883, from
the Ansonia Brass and Copper Company, 17 and 19 Cliff Street. Generally
speaking, customers found that their bills compared fairly with gas
bills for corresponding months where the same amount of light was used,
and they paid promptly and cheerfully, with emphatic encomiums of the
new light. During November, 1883, a little over one year after the
station was started, bills for lighting amounting to over $9000 were
collected.
An interesting story of meter experience in the first few months of
operation of the Pearl Street station is told by one of the "boys" who
was then in position to know the facts; "Mr. J. P. Morgan, whose firm
was one of the first customers, expressed to Mr. Edison some doubt as
to the accuracy of the meter. The latter, firmly convinced of its
correctness, suggested a strict test by having some cards printed and
hung on each fixture at Mr. Morgan's place. On these cards was to be
noted the number of lamps in the fixture, and the time they were turned
on and off each day for a month. At the end of that time the lamp-hours
were to be added together by one of the clerks and figured on a basis of
a definite amount per lamp-hour, and compared with the bill that would
be rendered by the station for the corresponding period. The results
of the first month's test showed an apparent overcharge by the Edison
company. Mr. Morgan was exultant, while Mr. Edison was still confident
and suggested a continuation of the test. Another month's trial showed
somewhat similar results. Mr. Edison was a little disturbed, but
insisted that there was a mistake somewhere. He went down to Drexel,
Morgan & Company's office to investigate, and, after looking around,
asked when the office was cleaned out. He was told it was done at night
by the janitor, who was sent for, and upon being interrogated as to what
light he used, said that he turned on a central fixture containing about
ten lights. It came out that he had made no record of the time these
lights were in use. He was told to do so in future, and another month's
test was made. On comparison with the company's bill, rendered on the
meter-reading, the meter came within a few cents of the amount computed
from the card records, and Mr. Morgan was completely satisfied of the
accuracy of the meter."
It is a strange but not extraordinary commentary on the perversity of
human nature and the lack of correct observation, to note that even
after the Pearl Street station had been in actual operation twenty-four
hours a day for nearly three months, there should still remain an
attitude of "can't be done." That such a scepticism still obtained is
evidenced by the public prints of the period. Edison's electric-light
system and his broad claims were freely discussed and animadverted upon
at the very time he was demonstrating their successful application. To
show some of the feeling at the time, we reproduce the following letter,
which appeared November 29, 1882:
"To the Editor of the Sun:
"SIR,--In reading the discussions relative to the Pearl Street station
of the Edison light, I have noted that while it is claimed that there
is scarcely any loss from leakage of current, nothing is said about the
loss due to the resistance of the long circuits. I am informed that this
is the secret of the failure to produce with the power in position a
sufficient amount of current to run all the lamps that have been put
up, and that while six, and even seven, lights to the horse-power may be
produced from an isolated plant, the resistance of the long underground
wires reduces this result in the above case to less than three lights to
the horse-power, thus making the cost of production greatly in excess of
gas. Can the Edison company explain this? 'INVESTIGATOR'."
This was one of the many anonymous letters that had been written to the
newspapers on the subject, and the following reply by the Edison company
was printed December 3, 1882:
"To the Editor of the Sun:
"SIR,--'Investigator' in Wednesday's Sun, says that the Edison company
is troubled at its Pearl Street station with a 'loss of current, due
to the resistance of the long circuits'; also that, whereas Edison gets
'six or even seven lights to the horse-power in isolated plants, the
resistance of the long underground wires reduces that result in the
Pearl Street station to less than three lights to the horse-power.' Both
of these statements are false. As regards loss due to resistance, there
is a well-known law for determining it, based on Ohm's law. By use of
that law we knew in advance, that is to say, when the original plans for
the station were drawn, just what this loss would be, precisely the same
as a mechanical engineer when constructing a mill with long lines of
shafting can forecast the loss of power due to friction. The practical
result in the Pearl Street station has fully demonstrated the
correctness of our estimate thus made in advance. As regards our getting
only three lights per horse-power, our station has now been running
three months, without stopping a moment, day or night, and we invariably
get over six lamps per horse-power, or substantially the same as we do
in our isolated plants. We are now lighting one hundred and ninety-three
buildings, wired for forty-four hundred lamps, of which about two-thirds
are in constant use, and we are adding additional houses and lamps
daily. These figures can be verified at the office of the Board of
Underwriters, where certificates with full details permitting the use of
our light are filed by their own inspector. To light these lamps we run
from one to three dynamos, according to the lamps in use at any given
time, and we shall start additional dynamos as fast as we can connect
more buildings. Neither as regards the loss due to resistance, nor as
regards the number of lamps per horse-power, is there the slightest
trouble or disappointment on the part of our company, and your
correspondent is entirely in error is assuming that there is. Let me
suggest that if 'Investigator' really wishes to investigate, and is
competent and willing to learn the exact facts, he can do so at this
office, where there is no mystery of concealment, but, on the contrary,
a strong desire to communicate facts to intelligent inquirers. Such
a method of investigating must certainly be more satisfactory to one
honestly seeking knowledge than that of first assuming an error as the
basis of a question, and then demanding an explanation.
"Yours very truly,
"S. B. EATON, President."
Viewed from the standpoint of over twenty-seven years later, the wisdom
and necessity of answering anonymous newspaper letters of this kind
might be deemed questionable, but it must be remembered that, although
the Pearl Street station was working successfully, and Edison's
comprehensive plans were abundantly vindicated, the enterprise
was absolutely new and only just stepping on the very threshold of
commercial exploitation. To enter in and possess the land required the
confidence of capital and the general public. Hence it was necessary to
maintain a constant vigilance to defeat the insidious attacks of carping
critics and others who would attempt to injure the Edison system by
misleading statements.
It will be interesting to the modern electrician to note that when this
pioneer station was started, and in fact for some little time afterward,
there was not a single electrical instrument in the whole station--not
a voltmeter or an ammeter! Nor was there a central switchboard! Each
dynamo had its own individual control switch. The feeder connections
were all at the front of the building, and the general voltage control
apparatus was on the floor above. An automatic pressure indicator had
been devised and put in connection with the main circuits. It consisted,
generally speaking, of an electromagnet with relays connecting with a
red and a blue lamp. When the electrical pressure was normal,
neither lamp was lighted; but if the electromotive force rose above a
predetermined amount by one or two volts, the red lamp lighted up,
and the attendant at the hand-wheel of the field regulator inserted
resistance in the field circuit, whereas, if the blue lamp lighted,
resistance was cut out until the pressure was raised to normal. Later on
this primitive indicator was supplanted by the "Bradley Bridge," a crude
form of the "Howell" pressure indicators, which were subsequently used
for many years in the Edison stations.
Much could be added to make a complete pictorial description of the
historic Pearl Street station, but it is not within the scope of this
narrative to enter into diffuse technical details, interesting as they
may be to many persons. We cannot close this chapter, however, without
mention of the fate of the Pearl Street station, which continued in
successful commercial operation until January 2, 1890, when it was
partially destroyed by fire. All the "Jumbos" were ruined, excepting No.
9, which is still a venerated relic in the possession of the New
York Edison Company. Luckily, the boilers were unharmed. Belt-driven
generators and engines were speedily installed, and the station was
again in operation in a few days. The uninjured "Jumbo," No. 9, again
continued to perform its duty. But in the words of Mr. Charles L.
Clarke, "the glory of the old Pearl Street station, unique in bearing
the impress of Mr. Edison's personality, and, as it were, constructed
with his own hands, disappeared in the flame and smoke of that Thursday
morning fire."
The few days' interruption of the service was the only serious one
that has taken place in the history of the New York Edison Company from
September 4, 1882, to the present date. The Pearl Street station was
operated for some time subsequent to the fire, but increasing demands
in the mean time having led to the construction of other stations, the
mains of the First District were soon afterward connected to another
plant, the Pearl Street station was dismantled, and the building was
sold in 1895.
The prophetic insight into the magnitude of central-station lighting
that Edison had when he was still experimenting on the incandescent lamp
over thirty years ago is a little less than astounding, when it is so
amply verified in the operations of the New York Edison Company (the
successor of the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of New York) and
many others. At the end of 1909 the New York Edison Company alone was
operating twenty-eight stations and substations, having a total capacity
of 159,500 kilowatts. Connected with its lines were approximately 85,000
customers wired for 3,813,899 incandescent lamps and nearly 225,000
horse-power through industrial electric motors connected with the
underground service. A large quantity of electrical energy is also
supplied for heating and cooking, charging automobiles, chemical and
plating work, and various other uses.