Edison's Pedigree - 1

Edison's Pedigree - 1

THOMAS ALVA EDISON was born at Milan Ohio, February 11, 1847. The State that
rivals Virginia as a "Mother of Presidents" has evidently other titles to distinction of the
same nature. For picturesque detail it would not be easy to find any story excelling that of
the Edison family before it reached the Western Reserve. The story epitomizes American
idealism, restlessness, freedom of individual opinion, and ready adjustment to the
surrounding conditions of pioneer life. The ancestral Edisons who came over from
Holland, as nearly as can be determined, in 1730, were descendants of extensive 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
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.