Edison, His Life and Inventions | Page 5

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