Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1915-11-05
EDISON'S LIFE ROMANCE
Edison the Ounce
Edison the newsboy!
Candidates

Edison the Ounce!
Edison the newsboy
Edison the starving, itinerant tele'
grapher, penniless in New York!
Strange as it may seem, these are but
a few of the vital facts in the romantic
life of Thomas A. Edison, foremost
American and the inventive genius who
has made more millions from new dis
coveries and inventions than any othel
man in the history OF the world.
On the 21st day of October, the an
niversary of the electric light, now
known as "Edison Day." the civilized
world paid tribute to the genius
who gave us the electric light, the
photograph, the moving picture ma
chine and a hundred other epoch-mak-
ing inventions.
Edison's early life reads like a piece
of fiction. Samuel Ed son, the fa'hel
of Thomas, kept a hotel at Vienna,
Canada, on Lake Erie. He married
Miss Nancy Elliott, a school teacher,
in 1928. Samuel Edison took part in
the revolt against England and, because
of this, removed to Milan, Ohio, in 1912,
where Thomas Alva was born in l847,
AS a 10y Edison was not strong and,
therefore, did not go to school as soon
as most boys of that day. In the mean
time the family removed to Port Huron,
Mich. Samuel Edison was &C i've in
the grain and lumber business and pros
porous. The family was well-to-do and
prominent in the society Of the com
muDity.
About this time Thomas Alva started
bravely out to school. For three months
he stood patiently at the foot of bis
class, then his teachers gave him up in
despair. c He was sent home and mi OF
the instructors confided to Edison's
father hat the boy was a Ounce. Edi-
son never ventured inside school house
afterthi trying experience His mother
took up the task of the boys education
and how well she succeeded has been
evidenced in later years. In the cellar
of his home Edison installed his first
Laboratory" where he performed GER
tain dubious chemical experiments and
tested out the formulas encountered in
his scientific reading. II was to secure
money for these experiments hat .Edi-
son turned pewsb y and in 1859 he b :
gan selling pa ers on the trains of the
Grand Trunk between Port Huron aud
Detroit. Nearly all the profits from
this enterprise went to support his
laboratory and chemical experiments.
And very soon he bad installed in the
baggage car a small laboratory where
he could experiment during the leisure
hours of the daily run Because of an
accident in this laboratory, which set
fire to the car,..Edison was thrown off
the train and this ended his career as q
newsboy.
Edison also established The Weekly
Herald, the first newspaper eve print
on a moving train, which he ran for
some time to augment his earnings
from the sale of newspapers. About
this time he saved from death the
young son of j. U. Mackenzie, the
station agent at Mount Clemens Mich.
and in gratitude the father taught Edi.
son biography. Edison put up a small
telegraph line between his home and
that of a boy friend. Thus began the
long years when Edison worked at tel
egraphing and travelled all over The
country. For five years Edison drifted
from place to place, working at his
trade, never staying long in any ont
city. Some of his experiences in those
rowing days, as related by Edison to
day, are very laughable.
In 1868 Edison drifted to Boston
He was one of the best telegraphers il
the business and being possessed of ar
inventive and scientific turn of minC
it was not surprising that he should
begin to develop new and better tele
graph apparatus. In the Boston offic
of the Western Union began the ex
periments and study necessary for per
fecting his duplex system of telegra
ply. On the 18th day of October, 1858
he was granted his first patent for al
electrical vote recorder. He tried t.
get Congress interested in this bu
failed. From Boston he went to New