iary
interest in his patents) have made princely fortunes by the introduction
of the telephone.

CHAPTER IX. THOMAS ALVA EDISON.

Thomas Alva Edison, the most famous inventor of his time and country,
was born at Milan, Erie County, Ohio, in the United States, on February
11, 1847. His pedigree has been traced for two centuries to a family
of prosperous millers in Holland, some of whom emigrated to America
in 1730. Thomas, his great-grandfather, was an officer of a bank in
Manhattan Island during the Revolution, and his signature is extant on
the old notes of the American currency. Longevity seems a characteristic
of the strain, for Thomas lived to the patriarchal term of 102, his son
to 103, and Samuel, the father of the inventor, is, we understand, a
brisk and hale old man of eighty-six.

Born at Digby, in the county of Annapolis, Nova Scotia, on August 16,
1804, Samuel was apprenticed to a tailor, but in his manhood he forsook
the needle to engage in the lumber trade, and afterwards in grain. He
resided for a time in Canada, where, at Vienna, he was married to Miss
Nancy Elliott, a popular teacher in the high school. She was of Scotch
descent, and born in Chenango County, New York, on January 10, 1810.
After his marriage he removed, in 1837, to Detroit, Michigan, and the
following year settled in Milan.

In his younger days Samuel Edison was a man of fine appearance. He stood
6 feet 2 inches in his stockings, and even at the age of sixty-four
he was known to outjump 260 soldiers of a regiment quartered at Fort
Gratiot, in Michigan. His wife was a fine-looking woman, intelligent,
well-educated, and a social favourite. The inventor probably draws his
physical endurance from his father, and his intellect from his mother.

Milan is situated on the Huron River, about ten miles from the lake, and
was then a rising town of 3,000 inhabitants, mostly occupied with the
grain and timber trade. Mr. Edison dwelt in a plain cottage with a low
fence in front, which stood beside the roadway under the shade of one or
two trees.

The child was neither pale nor prematurely thoughtful; he was
rosy-cheeked, laughing, and chubby. He liked to ramble in the woods,
or play on the banks of the river, and could repeat the songs of the
boatmen ere he was five years old. Still he was fond of building little
roads with planks, and scooping out canals or caverns in the sand.

An amusing anecdote is imputed to his sister, Mrs. Homer Page