Thomas Edison was born February 11, 1847 in Milan, Ohio, but grew up in Port Huron, Michigan, about 63 miles from Detroit. His grandfather, Samuel Edison, Sr. was a Loyalist refugee who fled the United States after the Revolutionary War. His father, Samuel Edison, Jr., born in Canada, fled from there after he was involved in a political rebellion of his own in 1837.
As a child, Thomas Edison "sold candy and newspapers on trains running from Port Huron to Detroit (similar to what my father did as a boy on boats between Troy and Albany, New York)." He was earning $50 a week by age 13.
In 1878, Thomas Edison began working on an electric illumination system to replace gas and oil based lighting. His first successful test of a long-lasting incandescent lamp occurred on October 29, 1879, lasting more than 13 hours. In January of the following year, Edison received a patent (#223898) for his invention of a commercially practical light.
On January 19, 1883 (137 years ago today), "Roselle, New Jersey (20 miles from New York City) earned its place in history when the first electric lighting system employing overhead wires went into service."
"The system was built by Thomas Edison as part of an experiment to prove that an entire community could be lit by electricity from a shared, central generating station."
"A steam-driven generator sent the juice through the wires strung overhead to a store, the town's railroad depot, 40 or so houses and 150 street lights. The First Presbyterian Church of Roselle made electrical and ecclesiastical history three months later when it became the world's first church to be lighted by electricity."
"The electric chandelier still hangs in the church. In the centennial year of 1983, a bronze and granite marker was dedicated at the original site of Edison's generator at the corner of Locust Street and West First Avenue in Roselle."
Thomas Edison died on October 18, 1931 (age 84) of complications of diabetes. He has been described as America's greatest inventor.
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