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 proportion 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.
[footnote 1: the general scheme of a fire-alarm telegraph
system embodies a central office to which notice can be sent
from any number of signal boxes of the outbreak of a fire in
the district covered by the box, the central office in turn
calling out the nearest fire engines, and warning the fire
department in general of the occurrence. such fire alarms
can be exchanged automatically, or by operators, and are
sometimes associated with a large fire-alarm bell or
whistle. some boxes can be operated by the passing public;
others need special keys. the box mechanism is usually of
the ratchet, step-by-step movement, familiar in district
messenger call-boxes.]
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 enter 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.