Edison, His Life and Inventions | Page 6

entirely without food or sleep, through a wild country infested
with Indians of unfriendly disposition. Thus was the Edison family
repatriated by a picturesque political episode, and the great inventor
given a birthplace on American soil, just as was Benjamin Franklin
when his father came from England to Boston. Samuel Edison left
behind him, however, in Canada, several brothers, all of whom lived to
the age of ninety or more, and from whom there are descendants in the
region.
After some desultory wanderings for a year or two along the shores of
Lake Erie, among the prosperous towns then springing up, the family,
with its Canadian home forfeited, and in quest of another resting-place,

came to Milan, Ohio, in 1842. That pretty little village offered at the
moment many attractions as a possible Chicago. The railroad system of
Ohio was still in the future, but the Western Reserve had already
become a vast wheat-field, and huge quantities of grain from the central
and northern counties sought shipment to Eastern ports. The Huron
River, emptying into Lake Erie, was navigable within a few miles of
the village, and provided an admirable outlet. Large granaries were
established, and proved so successful that local capital was tempted
into the project of making a tow-path canal from Lockwood Landing
all the way to Milan itself. The quaint old Moravian mission and
quondam Indian settlement of one hundred inhabitants found itself of a
sudden one of the great grain ports of the world, and bidding fair to
rival Russian Odessa. A number of grain warehouses, or primitive
elevators, were built along the bank of the canal, and the produce of the
region poured in immediately, arriving in wagons drawn by four or six
horses with loads of a hundred bushels. No fewer than six hundred
wagons came clattering in, and as many as twenty sail vessels were
loaded with thirty-five thousand bushels of grain, during a single day.
The canal was capable of being navigated by craft of from two hundred
to two hundred and fifty tons burden, and the demand for such vessels
soon led to the development of a brisk ship-building industry, for which
the abundant forests of the region supplied the necessary lumber. An
evidence of the activity in this direction is furnished by the fact that six
revenue cutters were launched at this port in these brisk days of its
prime.
Samuel Edison, versatile, buoyant of temper, and ever optimistic,
would thus appear to have pitched his tent with shrewd judgment.
There was plenty of occupation ready to his hand, and more than one
enterprise received his attention; but he devoted his energies chiefly to
the making of shingles, for which there was a large demand locally and
along the lake. Canadian lumber was used principally in this industry.
The wood was imported in "bolts" or pieces three feet long. A bolt
made two shingles; it was sawn asunder by hand, then split and shaved.
None but first-class timber was used, and such shingles outlasted far
those made by machinery with their cross-grain cut. A house in Milan,
on which some of those shingles were put in 1844, was still in excellent

condition forty-two years later. Samuel Edison did well at this
occupation, and employed several men, but there were other outlets
from time to time for his business activity and speculative disposition.
Edison's mother was an attractive and highly educated woman, whose
influence upon his disposition and intellect has been profound and
lasting. She was born in Chenango County, New York, in 1810, and
was the daughter of the Rev. John Elliott, a Baptist minister and
descendant of an old Revolutionary soldier, Capt. Ebenezer Elliott, of
Scotch descent. The old captain was a fine and picturesque type. He
fought all through the long War of Independence--seven years--and
then appears to have settled down at Stonington, Connecticut. There, at
any rate, he found his wife, "grandmother Elliott," who was Mercy
Peckham, daughter of a Scotch Quaker. Then came the residence in
New York State, with final removal to Vienna, for the old soldier,
while drawing his pension at Buffalo, lived in the little Canadian town,
and there died, over 100 years old. The family was evidently one of
considerable culture and deep religious feeling, for two of Mrs.
Edison's uncles and two brothers were also in the same Baptist ministry.
As a young woman she became a teacher in the public high school at
Vienna, and thus met her husband, who was residing there. The family
never consisted of more than three children, two boys and a girl. A
trace of the Canadian environment is seen in the fact that Edison's elder
brother was named William Pitt, after the great English statesman. Both
his brother and the sister exhibited considerable ability. William Pitt