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MILTON ADAMS was working in the office
of the Franklin Telegraph Company in Boston
when he received Edison's appeal from Port
Huron, and with characteristic impetuosity at
once made it his business to secure a position
for his friend. There was no opening in the
Franklin office, so Adams went over to the
Western Union office, and asked the manager,
Mr. George F. Milliken, if he did not want
an operator who, like young Lochinvar, came
out of the West. "What kind of copy does he
make?" was the cautious response. "I passed
Edison's letter through the window for his
inspection. Milliken read it, and a look of
surprise came over his countenance as he asked me
if he could take it off the line like that. I
said he certainly could, and that there was
nobody who could stick him. Milliken said that
if he was that kind of an operator I could send
for him, and I wrote to Edison to come on, as
I had a job for him in the main office of the
Western Union." Meantime Edison had secured
his pass over the Grand Trunk Railroad, and
spent four days and nights on the journey,
suffering extremes of cold and hunger.
Franklin's arrival in Philadelphia finds its
parallel in the very modest debut of Adams's
friend in Boston.
It took only five minutes for Edison to get the
"job," for Superintendent Milliken, a fine
type of telegraph official, saw quickly through
the superficialities, and realized that it was
no ordinary young operator he was engaging.
Edison himself tells the story of what
happened. "The manager asked me when I was
ready to go to work. `Now,' I replied I
was then told to return at 5.30 P.M.,
and punctually at that hour I entered the main
operating-room and was introduced to the night
manager. The weather being cold, and being
clothed poorly, my peculiar appearance caused
much mirth, and, as I afterward learned, the
night operators had consulted together how they
might `put up a job on the jay from the woolly
West.' I was given a pen and assigned to the
New York No. 1 wire. After waiting an
hour, I was told to come over to a special
table and take a special report for the Boston
Herald, the conspirators having arranged to
have one of the fastest senders in New York
send the despatch and `salt' the new man. I
sat down unsuspiciously at the table, and the
New York man started slowly. Soon he
increased his speed, to which I easily adapted
my pace. This put my rival on his mettle, and
he put on his best powers, which, however,
were soon reached. At this point I happened to
look up, and saw the operators all looking over
my shoulder, with their faces shining with fun
and excitement. I knew then that they were
trying to put up a job on me, but kept my own
counsel. The New York man then commenced to
slur over his words, running them together and
sticking the signals; but I had been used to
this style of telegraphy in taking report, and
was not in the least discomfited. Finally,
when I thought the fun had gone far enough, and
having about completed the special, I quietly
opened the key and remarked, telegraphically,
to my New York friend: `Say, young man,
change off and send with your other foot.'
This broke the New York man all up, and he
turned the job over to another man to finish."
Edison had a distaste for taking press report,
due to the fact that it was steady, continuous
work, and interfered with the studies and
investigations that could be carried on in the
intervals of ordinary commercial telegraphy. He
was not lazy in any sense. While he had no very
lively interest in the mere routine work of a
telegraph office, he had the profoundest
curiosity as to the underlying principles of
electricity that made telegraphy possible, and
he had an unflagging desire and belief in his own
ability to improve the apparatus he handled
daily. The whole intellectual atmosphere of
Boston was favorable to the development of the
brooding genius in this shy, awkward, studious
youth, utterly indifferent to clothes and
personal appearance, but ready to spend his last
dollar on books and scientific paraphernalia.
It is matter of record that he did once buy a
new suit for thirty dollars in Boston, but the
following Sunday, while experimenting with
acids in his little workshop, the suit was
spoiled. "That is what I get for putting so
much money in a new suit," was the laconic
remark of the youth, who was more than delighted
to pick up a complete set of Faraday's works
about the same time. Adams says that when
Edison brought home these books at 4 A.M.
he read steadily until breakfast-time, and then
he remarked, enthusiastically: "Adams, I
have got so much to do and life is so short, I
am going to hustle." And thereupon he started
on a run for breakfast. Edison himself says:
"It was in Boston I bought Faraday's
works. I think I must have tried about
everything in those books. His explanations
were simple. He used no mathematics. He was
the Master Experimenter. I don't think there
were many copies of Faraday's works sold in
those days. The only people who did anything in
electricity were the telegraphers and the
opticians making simple school apparatus to
demonstrate the principles." One of these
firms was Palmer & Hall, whose catalogue of
1850 showed a miniature electric locomotive
made by Mr. Thomas Hall, and exhibited in
operation the following year at the Charitable
Mechanics' Fair in Boston. In 1852
Mr. Hall made for a Dr. A. L.
Henderson, of Buffalo, New York, a model
line of railroad with electric-motor engine,
telegraph line, and electric railroad signals,
together with a figure operating the signals at
each end of the line automatically. This was in
reality the first example of railroad trains
moved by telegraph signals, a practice now so
common and universal as to attract no comment.
To show how little some fundamental methods can
change in fifty years, it may be noted that
Hall conveyed the current to his tiny car
through forty feet of rail, using the rail as
conductor, just as Edison did more than thirty
years later in his historic experiments for
Villard at Menlo Park; and just as a large
pro- portion of American trolley systems do at
this present moment.
It was among such practical, investigating folk
as these that Edison was very much at home.
Another notable man of this stamp, with whom
Edison was thrown in contact, was the late
Mr. Charles Williams, who, beginning his
career in the electrical field in the forties,
was at the height of activity as a maker of
apparatus when Edison arrived in the city; and
who afterward, as an associate of Alexander
Graham Bell, enjoyed the distinction of being
the first manufacturer in the world of
telephones. At his Court Street workshop
Edison was a frequent visitor. Telegraph
repairs and experiments were going on
constantly, especially on the early fire-alarm
telegraphs[1] of Farmer and Gamewell, and
with the aid of one of the men there--probably
George Anders--Edison worked out into an
operative model his first invention, a vote-
recorder, the first Edison patent, for which
papers were executed on October 11,
1868, and which was taken out June 1,
1869, No. 90,646. The purpose of
this particular device was to permit a vote in
the National House of Representatives to be
taken in a minute or so, complete lists being
furnished of all members voting on the two sides
of any question Mr. Edison, in recalling the
circumstances, says: "Roberts was the
telegraph operator who was the financial backer
to the extent of $100. The invention when
completed was taken to Washington. I think it
was exhibited before a committee that had
something to do with the Capitol. The chairman
of the committee, after seeing how quickly and
perfectly it worked, said: `Young man, if
there is any invention on earth that we don't
want down here, it is this. One of the
greatest weapons in the hands of a minority to
prevent bad legislation is filibustering on
votes, and this instrument would prevent it.'
I saw the truth of this, because as press
operator I had taken miles of Congressional
proceedings, and to this day an enormous amount
of time is wasted during each session of the
House in foolishly calling the members' names
and recording and then adding their votes, when
the whole operation could be done in almost a
moment by merely pressing a particular button at
each desk. For filibustering purposes,
however, the present methods are most
admirable." Edison determined from that time
forth to devote his inventive faculties only to
things for which there was a real, genuine
demand, something that subserved the actual
necessities of humanity. This first patent was
taken out for him by the late Hon. Carroll
D. Wright, afterward U. S. Commissioner
of Labor, and a well-known publicist, then
practicing patent law in Boston. He describes
Edison as uncouth in manner, a chewer rather
than a smoker of tobacco, but full of
intelligence and ideas.
Edison's curiously practical, though
imaginative, mind demanded realities to work
upon, things that belong to "human nature's
daily food," and he soon harked back to
telegraphy, a domain in which he was destined to
succeed, and over which he was to reign supreme
as an inventor. He did not, however, neglect
chemistry, but indulged his tastes in that
direction freely, although we have no record
that this work was anything more, at that time,
than the carrying out of experiments outlined in
the books. The foundations were being laid for
the remarkable chemical knowledge that later on
grappled successfully with so many knotty
problems in the realm of chemistry; notably with
the incandescent lamp and the storage battery.
Of one incident in his chemical experiments he
tells the following story: "I had read in a
scientific paper the method of making
nitroglycerine, and was so fired by the
wonderful properties it was said to possess,
that I determined to make some of the compound.
We tested what we considered a very small
quantity, but this produced such terrible and
unexpected results that we became alarmed, the
fact dawning upon us that we had a very large
white elephant in our possession. At 6
A.M. I put the explosive into a sarsaparilla
bottle, tied a string to it, wrapped it in a
paper, and gently let it down into the sewer,
corner of State and Washington Streets."
The associate in this was a man whom he had
found endeavoring to make electrical apparatus
for sleight-of-hand performances.
In the Boston telegraph office at that time,
as perhaps at others, there were operators
studying to en- ter college; possibly some were
already in attendance at Harvard University.
This condition was not unusual at one time; the
first electrical engineer graduated from
Columbia University, New York, followed up
his studies while a night operator, and came out
brilliantly at the head of his class. Edison
says of these scholars that they paraded their
knowledge rather freely, and that it was his
delight to go to the second-hand book stores on
Cornhill and study up questions which he could
spring upon them when he got an occasion. With
those engaged on night duty he got midnight lunch
from an old Irishman called "the Cake Man,"
who appeared regularly with his wares at 12
midnight. "The office was on the ground
floor, and had been a restaurant previous to its
occupation by the Western Union Telegraph
Company. It was literally loaded with
cockroaches, which lived between the wall and
the board running around the room at the floor,
and which came after the lunch. These were such
a bother on my table that I pasted two strips of
tinfoil on the wall at my desk, connecting one
piece to the positive pole of the big battery
supplying current to the wires and the negative
pole to the other strip. The cockroaches moving
up on the wall would pass over the strips. The
moment they got their legs across both strips
there was a flash of light and the cockroaches
went into gas. This automatic electrocuting
device attracted so much attention, and got half
a column in an evening paper, that the manager
made me stop it." The reader will remember
that a similar plan of campaign against rats was
carried out by Edison while in the West.
About this time Edison had a narrow escape from
injury that might easily have shortened his
career, and he seems to have provoked the
trouble more or less innocently by using a little
elementary chemistry. "After being in Boston
several months," he says, "working New York
wire No. 1, I was requested to work the
press wire, called the `milk route,' as there
were so many towns on it taking press
simultaneously. New York office had reported
great delays on the wire, due to operators
constantly interrupting, or `breaking,' as it
was called, to have words repeated which they
had failed to get; and New York claimed that
Boston was one of the worst offenders. It was
a rather hard position for me, for if I took
the report without breaking, it would prove the
previous Boston operator incompetent. The
results made the operator have some hard feelings
against me. He was put back on the wire, and
did much better after that. It seems that the
office boy was down on this man. One night he
asked me if I could tell him how to fix a key so
that it would not `break,' even if the
circuit-breaker was open, and also so that it
could not be easily detected. I told him to jab
a penful of ink on the platinum points, as there
was sugar enough to make it sufficiently thick to
hold up when the operator tried to break--the
current still going through the ink so that he
could not break.
"The next night about 1 A.M. this
operator, on the press wire, while I was
standing near a House printer studying it,
pulled out a glass insulator, then used upside
down as a substitute for an ink-bottle, and
threw it with great violence at me, just missing
my head. It would certainly have killed me if
it had not missed. The cause of the trouble was
that this operator was doing the best he could
not to break, but being compelled to, opened
his key and found he couldn't. The press
matter came right along, and he could not stop
it. The office boy had put the ink in a few
minutes before, when the operator had turned his
head during a lull. He blamed me instinctively
as the cause of the trouble. Later on we became
good friends. He took his meals at the same
emaciator that I did. His main object in life
seemed to be acquiring the art of throwing up
wash-pitchers and catching them without breaking
them. About one-third of his salary was used
up in paying for pitchers."
One day a request reached the Western Union
Telegraph office in Boston, from the principal
of a select school for young ladies, to the
effect that she would like some one to be sent up
to the school to exhibit and describe the Morse
telegraph to her "children." There has always
been a warm interest in Boston in the life and
work of Morse, who was born there, at
Charlestown, barely a mile from the birthplace
of Franklin, and this request for a little
lecture on Morse's telegraph was quite
natural. Edison, who was always ready to earn
some extra money for his experiments, and was
already known as the best- informed operator in
the office, accepted the invitation. What
happened is described by Adams as follows:
"We gathered up a couple of sounders, a
battery, and sonic wire, and at the appointed
time called on her to do the stunt. Her
school-room was about twenty by twenty feet,
not including a small platform. We rigged up
the line between the two ends of the room,
Edison taking the stage while I was at the
other end of the room. All being in readiness,
the principal was told to bring in her children.
The door opened and in came about twenty young
ladies elegantly gowned, not one of whom was
under seventeen. When Edison saw them I
thought he would faint. He called me on the
line and asked me to come to the stage and
explain the mysteries of the Morse system. I
replied that I thought he was in the right
place, and told him to get busy with his talk on
dots and dashes. Always modest, Edison was so
overcome he could hardly speak, but he managed
to say, finally, that as his friend Mr.
Adams was better equipped with cheek than he
was, we would change places, and he would do
the demonstrating while I explained the whole
thing. This caused the bevy to turn to see
where the lecturer was. I went on the stage,
said something, and we did some telegraphing
over the line. I guess it was satisfactory; we
got the money, which was the main point to
us." Edison tells the story in a similar
manner, but insists that it was he who saved the
situation. "I managed to say that I would
work the apparatus, and Mr. Adams would make
the explanations. Adams was so embarrassed that
he fell over an ottoman. The girls tittered,
and this increased his embarrassment until he
couldn't say a word. The situation was so
desperate that for a reason I never could
explain I started in myself and talked and
explained better than I ever did before or
since. I can talk to two or three persons; but
when there are more they radiate some unknown
form of influence which paralyzes my vocal
cords. However, I got out of this scrape,
and many times afterward when I chanced with
other operators to meet some of the young ladies
on their way home from school, they would smile
and nod, much to the mystification of the
operators, who were ignorant of this episode."
Another amusing story of this period of
impecuniosity and financial strain is told thus
by Edison: "My friend Adams was working in
the Franklin Telegraph Company, which
competed with the Western Union. Adams was
laid off, and as his financial resources had
reached absolute zero centigrade, I undertook
to let him sleep in my hall bedroom. I
generally had hall bedrooms, because they were
cheap and I needed money to buy apparatus. I
also had the pleasure of his genial company at
the boarding-house about a mile distant, but at
the sacrifice of some apparatus. One morning,
as we were hastening to breakfast, we came into
Tremont Row, and saw a large crowd in front of
two small `gents' furnishing goods stores. We
stopped to ascertain the cause of the
excitement. One store put up a paper sign in
the display window which said: `Three-hundred
pairs of stockings received this day, five cents
a pair--no connection with the store next
door.' Presently the other store put up a sign
stating they had received three hundred pairs,
price three cents per pair, and stated that they
had no connection with the store next door.
Nobody went in. The crowd kept increasing.
Finally, when the price had reached three pairs
for one cent, Adams said to me: `I can't
stand this any longer; give me a cent.' I
gave him a nickel, and he elbowed his way in;
and throwing the money on the counter, the store
being filled with women clerks, he said:
`Give me three pairs.' The crowd was
breathless, and the girl took down a box and
drew out three pairs of baby socks. `Oh!'
said Adams, `I want men's size.' `Well,
sir, we do not permit one to pick sizes for that
amount of money.' And the crowd roared; and
this broke up the sales."
It has generally been supposed that Edison did
not take up work on the stock ticker until after
his arrival a little later in New York; but he
says: "After the vote-recorder I invented a
stock ticker, and started a ticker service in
Boston; had thirty or forty subscribers, and
operated from a room over the Gold Exchange.
This was about a year after Callahan started in
New York." To say the least, this evidenced
great ability and enterprise on the part of the
youth. The dealings in gold during the Civil
War and after its close had brought gold
indicators into use, and these had soon been
followed by "stock tickers," the first of
which was introduced in New York in 1867.
The success of this new but still primitively
crude class of apparatus was immediate. Four
manufacturers were soon busy trying to keep pace
with the demands for it from brokers; and the
Gold & Stock Telegraph Company formed to
exploit the system soon increased its capital
from $200,000 to $300,000,
paying 12 per cent. dividends on the latter
amount. Within its first year the capital was
again increased to $1,000,000, and
dividends of 10 per cent. were paid easily on
that sum also. It is needless to say that such
facts became quickly known among the operators,
from whose ranks, of course, the new employees
were enlisted; and it was a common ambition
among the more ingenious to produce a new
ticker. From the beginning, each phase of
electrical development--indeed, each step in
mechanics--has been accompanied by the
well-known phenomenon of invention; namely,
the attempt of the many to perfect and refine and
even re-invent where one or two daring spirits
have led the way. The figures of capitalization
and profit just mentioned were relatively much
larger in the sixties than they are to-day; and
to impressionable young operators they spelled
illimitable wealth. Edison was, how ever,
about the only one in Boston of whom history
makes record as achieving any tangible result in
this new art; and he soon longed for the larger
telegraphic opportunity of New York. His
friend, Milt Adams, went West with
quenchless zest for that kind of roving life and
aimless adventure of which the serious minded
Edison had already had more than enough.
Realizing that to New York he must look for
further support in his efforts, Edison, deep
in debt for his embryonic inventions, but with
high hope and courage, now made the next
momentous step in his career. He was far riper
in experience and practice of his art than any
other telegrapher of his age, and had acquired,
moreover, no little knowledge of the practical
business of life. Note has been made above of
his invention of a stock ticker in Boston, and
of his establishing a stock-quotation circuit.
This was by no means all, and as a fitting
close to this chapter he may be quoted as to some
other work and its perils in experimentation:
"I also engaged in putting up private lines,
upon which I used an alphabetical dial
instrument for telegraphing between business
establishments, a forerunner of modern
telephony. This instrument was very simple and
practical, and any one could work it after a few
minutes' explanation. I had these instruments
made at Mr. Hamblet's, who had a little shop
where he was engaged in experimenting with
electric clocks. Mr. Hamblet was the father
and introducer in after years of the Western
Union Telegraph system of time distribution.
My laboratory was the headquarters for the men,
and also of tools and supplies for those private
lines. They were put up cheaply, as I used
the roofs of houses, just as the Western Union
did. It never occurred to me to ask permission
from the owners; all we did was to go to the
store, etc., say we were telegraph men, and
wanted to go up to the wires on the roof; and
permission was always granted.
"In this laboratory I had a large induction
coil which I had borrowed to make some
experiments with. One day I got hold of both
electrodes of the coil, and it clinched my hand
on them so that I couldn't let go. The
battery was on a shelf. The only way I could
get free was to back off and pull the coil, so
that the battery wires would pull the cells off
the shelf and thus break the circuit. I shut my
eyes and pulled, but the nitric acid splashed
all over my face and ran down my back. I rushed
to a sink, which was only half big enough, and
got in as well as I could and wiggled around for
several minutes to permit the water to dilute the
acid and stop the pain. My face and back were
streaked with yellow; the skin was thoroughly
oxidized. I did not go on the street by
daylight for two weeks, as the appearance of my
face was dreadful. The skin, however, peeled
off, and new skin replaced it without any
damage."
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