Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1878-11-08
Edison as a Boy.

train boy on the Grand Trunk Railroad,
OF Canada and Central Michigan. To
one who has noted the precocious self
possession, the flippant conversational
powers and the sharp financial dealings
OF the young persons who for the most
part abound in it, it does not seem a
profession for the cultivation of spir-
it of quiet research, or the most thor
Ough requirement of the sciences and
arts. But it is fair to presume that
Master Edison at this time had no very
comprehensive scheme of development
prepared. 1t offered the most available
means of livelihood. He went into it
with such will that in course of time
he became an employer of labor. having
four assistants under him for the dis
pOsal OF his wares. He is not averse to
recur to the humors of this part of his
life.
Were you one of the kind of train
boys he has been asked who sell figs
in boxes with bottoms half an inch
thich?"
If | recollect right" he replied. with
merry twinkle, the bottoms of my
boxes were good inch"
There exists daguerreotype of the
train-boy Of this epoch. 1t shows the
future celebrity as chubby faced fellow
in glazed cap and mutfler, with papers
under his arm. The face has an ex-
pansive smile,-not to put too fine a
point upon it, grin. Yet there is
something honest and little deprecat-
ing in it, instead of impudence He
was as will be shown, an eccentricity
among train-boys, and was no doubt
sensible of it. He looks like fellow
whose glazed cap brakeman would
touzle over his eyes in passing, while
thinking a good deal of him all the
same.
His popularity consisted in having
established i'll turn, in the disused
smokingsection of springless old bag
gage-car which served him as head
quarters for his papers, fruits and veg
etable ivory,-two industries little
known to train-boys in general. He
surrounded himself with a quantity of
bottles and some retort stands, made
in the railroad-shops in exchange for
papers, procured copy Of ''Fresen-
ius Qualitative Analysis" and, while
the car bumped rudely along, conduct
ed the experiments of chemist. By
hanging about the Office of the Detroit
Free Press, in some spare hours, he ac-
quired an idea Of printing. At favor
able opportunity he purchased from the
office three hundred pounds of old type,
and to the laboratory a printing office
was added. 1t seems to have been by
peculiar, good-natured, hanging around
process of his own, with his
eyes extremely wide open and sure
Of what they wanted to see, that his
practical information on so many use
ful subjects was obtained. He learned
something Of mechanics and the prac-
teal mastery of locomotive in the
railroad shops, and acquired an idea of
electricity from telegraph operators.
With his printing office he published
paper-the Grand Trunk Herald. 1t
was weekly, twelve by sixteen inches,
and was noticed by the London Times, to
which copy had been shown by some
traveller, as the only journal in the
world printed on railway train. The
impressions were taken by the most
primative of all means, that Of pressing
the sheets upon the type with the
hands, and were on but one side of the
paper Baggage-men and brakemen
contributed the literary contents In
1862, during the battle of Pittsburgh
Landing. the enterprising manager con
ceived the idea Of tclegraphing on the
headlines of his exciting news and hay
ing them pasted on bulletin-boards at
the small country stations. The result
was a profitable venture, and the first
awakening Of interest on his side in the
art of telegraphing, in which he was
destined to play such remarkable
part.
During this time he continued his
reading with unabated industry His
train carried him into Detroit where
there were advantages he had never en-
joyed before. An indication of his
thirst for knowledge, of noire ignor-
ing of enormous difficulties and of the
completeness with which the shaping of
his career was in his own hands, is
found in project formed by him to
read through the whole public library
There was no one to tell him that all Of
human knowledge may be found in a
certain moderate number of volumes,
nor to point out to him approximately
what they are Each book was in his
view distinct part of the great do
main, and he meant to lose none of it.
He began with the solid treatises of a
dusty lower shelf and actually read, in
the accomplishment of his heroic pur-
pose, fifteen feet in a line. He omit
ted no book and skipped nothing in the
book The list contained among others
Newton's Principal" Ure's scientific
dictionaries, and Burton's. Anatomy of
Melancholy"