Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1915-06-11

nation.
Thomas Edison was born in Ohio
in 1S47 where his father made shin
giles by hand. Thomas, when small
boy, constantly haunted his fathers |
shop, watching everything with his
big gray eyes and divesting himself
of continuous stream of questions.
His mother called him Little Sober
sides, for he was always too busy
to play with other boys. At twelve
years of age he became a business
man and enjoyed marked success as a
train boy. He sold more newspapers,
books, and fruit than the other boys, I
and still had time to print a little
newspaper, as we'll as TO start lab
ratory in one end of smoking car.
A friend taught him the trade of
telegraph operator, but he was ir-
resistably curious to know how and
why the instrument worked, and so
experimental with an old battery in |
his fathers cellar until he under
stood. He dressed shabbily and
spent all he earned on books and
apparatus. His first invention was a
repeater that would take down dots
and dashes as they came over the
wire. Later he invented an i'm
proved apparatus to be used in a
brokers' office, for which he received
$4,000. He then started factory
in Newark, N. j., with 300 employees.
Here Edison literally coined his in
ventive brain into money. He had
fifty inventions at various stages of
development at one time. Before he
was thirty this factory had been sold
and the labratory built at Menlo
Park, where he might devote his
time entirely to inventions. Here
Edison worked out the problems of
the telephone, electric light, phono-
graph, megaphone, and a multitude
of other big inventions. The cleo
trio light made him rich but cost him
years of work and vast expense to
perfect. Men were sent around the
world to find material for the fila
ment. In later years he built an i'm
mense plant at Orange, N. j., but
wealth and fame did not bring him
leisure, for his highest pleasure is
his work. He has often said, Il
owe my success to the fact that |
never had clock in my workroom."
Many other noted men spent their
early lives in humble occupations.
Daniel Webster, one of our great
est orators, belonged to a hard
working pioneer family.
Horace Greeley, one of Americas
greatest editors, received only a
common school education, and when
twenty-five years of age arrived in
New York City with scarcely ten
dollars in his pocket to begin his
life's battles.
Daniel Boone, the famous hunter
and pioneer, grew up in the wilder
ness, strong, brave, and accustomed
to hardships; these were necessary
preparations for a career like his.
Andrew Carnegie came to this
country when thirteen years of age,
and without even common school
education, commenced work. From
these severe circumstances he emerg-
ed with an immense fortune of
which he is making noble use.
Among our presidents we find John
Adam S, the son of farmer of small
means. And Andrew Johnson, though
an orphan boy without means, made
of himself lawyer and rapidly rose
to fame.
James A. Garfeld's boyhood days
) were spent in poverty; his father
; dying, he helped his mother in earn
; ing for the family. Without aiC
S from anyone he worked his way on
e ward and upward, becoming recog
S nized leader of the Republican part.
Y by whom he was elected to the presi
f dency in 1880.
y There is still another great man Of
i whom pages might be written and
D, yet half his greatness remained un
n told; | refer to Abraham Lincoln
a man whom we all revere for hi
+ simple goodness, his honesty, coul
v age, kindness, duty, and love fo
d humanity. Nothing else that ever hal
Al IL Il