According to Neil Baldwin in Edison: inventing the century,  in 1730 two Dutch Edesons immigrated to Elizabeth Town just south of New Ark, New Jersey. Elizabeth and her infant John Edeson. Little is known of young John's upbringing but the records of the First Presbytarian Church of Hanover show that he married Sarah Ogden in October of 1765. These Edesons who settled in Caldwell, New Jersey were the great grandparents of Thomas Alva Edison.

 

The Edesons Edison conversion.

 

The Edeson clan moved from New Jersey for political reason, likely John was a rebel in the Revolution. At first it was Staten Island and then Canada as political exiles. The Digby Muster Roll was a census of the day and the 1784 Muster Role does provide the name of John Edison and not Edeson with the description of loyalist and a family of 9. A later move brought the Edisons to Bayham, Ontario were they began a pioneer village and went on to own the property rights to several thousands of acres of land.

 

A further child was born in Canada and another died in childbirth. Amongst these Edesons Edison was Samuel and the eldest son and he married a Nancy Simpson or Stimson. They in turn had eight children. Samuel Ogden Edison Jr. was their sixth born and he married Nancy Matthews Elliott and they parented Thomas Alva Edison the inventor and great innovator who influenced many generations to come. By this time the were in Milan, Ohio.

 

Thomas Alva Edison - the man who invented the light bulb was born in Milan Ohio on February 11, 1847. He lived a long life and died of natural causes on October 18, 1931.

 

Though he is most famous for inventing the lightbulb and the phonograph the Edesons Edison also invented hundreds of other gadgets and he is considered a genius of the early electrical age. His name is behind no less than 1000 patents.

 

Edison did not receive a great formal education but he managed to find the inspiration required to set up a research lab in the family basement. Later he set up a professional lab intended for industrial research in Menlo Park.

Finally he built a new lab in West Orange, New Jersey.

 

Thomas Alva Edison was married twice, first to Mary Stilwell and when she passed away in 1884 he remarried in 1886 to Mina Edison. All together their were six Edison children. 

 

Some inventions by Thomas Alva Edison, the Wizard of Menlo Park.

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

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