Had there not been a family difference of opinion about the War of Independence, we might never have had Edison the great inventor.
The first Edisons in this country came over from Holland about the year 1730. They were descendants of a family of millers on the Zuyder Zee, and when they came to America they first settled near Caldwell, New Jersey.
Later on they removed to some land along the Passaic River. It is a curious and interesting coincidence that a hundred and sixty years later Mr. Edison established the home he now occupies in the Orange Mountains, which is in the same general neighborhood.
The family must have gotten along well in the world, for we find the name of Thomas Edison, as a bank official on Manhattan Island, signed to Continental currency in 1778. This was Mr. Edison's great-grandfather, who lived to be one hundred and four years of age.
It will be seen from the date, 1778, that this was during the time of the War of Independence. This Thomas Edison was a stanch patriot, who thoroughly believed in American independence. He had a son named John, who differed with his father in political principles and favored a continuance of British rule.
After the war was over John left the country, and, with many other Loyalists, emigrated to Nova Scotia and settled there. While he still lived there a son was born to him, at Digby, in 1804. This son was named Samuel, who became the father of Thomas Alva Edison, the inventor.
Seven years later John Edison, as a Loyalist, became entitled under the laws of Canada to a grant of six hundred acres of land, and moved westward with his family to take possession of it. He made his way through the State of New York in wagons drawn by oxen to the township of Bayfield, in upper Canada, on Lake Huron, and there settled down.
Some time afterward John Edison moved from Bayfield to Vienna, Ontario, on the northern bank of Lake Erie. As will be understood from the above, he was the grandfather of Mr. Edison, who gives this recollection of the old man in those early Canadian days:
"When I was five years old I was taken by my father and mother on a visit to Vienna. We were driven by a carriage from Milan, Ohio, to a railroad, then to a port on Lake Erie, thence by a canal-boat in a tow of several miles to Port Burwell, in Canada, across the lake, and from there we drove to Vienna, a short distance away. I remember my grandfather perfectly as he appeared at one hundred and two years of age, when he died. In the middle of the day he sat under a large tree in front of the house, facing a well-traveled road. His head was covered completely with a large quantity of very white hair, and he chewed tobacco incessantly, nodding to friends as they passed by. He used a very large cane, and walked from the chair to the house, resenting any assistance. I viewed him from a distance, and could never get very close to him. I remember some large pipes, and especially a molasses jug, a trunk, and several other things that came from Holland."
John Edison was long-lived, like his father, and died at the age of one hundred and two. Little is known of the early manhood of his son Samuel (Thomas A. Edison's father), until we find him keeping a hotel at Vienna, and in 1828 marrying Miss Nancy Elliott, who was a school-teacher there.