Thomas Alva Edison Birthplace is the historic house in which the American inventor Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847. It is located at 9 Edison Drive in Milan, Ohio, in the United States. On October 15, 1966, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places and declared a National Historic Landmark. It is now the Edison Birthplace Museum.

History

	Thomas Alva Edison Birthplace ; Milan, Ohio
	U.S. National Register of Historic Places
	U.S. National Historic Landmark
	Thomas Alva Edison Birthplace
Location	9 Edison Drive; Milan, Ohio
Built	1841
NRHP reference No.	66000608
Added to NRHP	October 15, 1966

The Edison family

In the 1730's, John Edison, great-grandfather of the inventor,farmed a large tract of land not far from West Orange, New Jersey. This is where Thomas A. Edison made his home 160 years later.

John Edison remained a Loyalist during the Revolution. Because of this, he was imprisoned and was, for a time, under sentence of execution. He was saved from this fate through the efforts of prominent Whig relatives.

John Edison's lands were confiscated, and the family migrated to Nova Scotia. The Edisons remained in Nova Scotia until 1811, when they moved to Vienna, Ontario.

Edison's grandfather, Captain Samuel Edison, served with the British in the War of 1812.

In Ontario, Edison's father, also named Samuel, met and married Nancy Elliott, a school teacher and daughter of Ebenezer Matthews Elliott, who was a captain in Washington's army. The younger Samuel became involved in another political struggle -- a much later and unsuccessful Canadian counterpart of the American Revolution known as the Papineau-MacKenzie Rebellion.

Upon the failure of this rebellion, Samuel was forced to flee across the border to the United States. After innumerable dangers and hardships, he finally reached the town of Milan, Ohio, where he decided to settle. In Milan, Samuel established himself as a manufacturer of roof shingles and sent for Nancy and their five children to join him.

The village of Milan

The Edison family joined Samuel in Milan about 1840. Due to its location on the Huron River and the canal (built to link Milan to the Great Lakes), the town became a busy grain port. Commodities from every point in the state were conveyed to Milan in long wagon trains, then loaded aboard ships from warehouses that lined the banks of the canal. One of the warehouses still stands by the abandoned canal basin.

In 1847, 917,800 bushels of wheat were shipped from the port of Milan. This made it the second largest wheat shipping port in the world after the Ukranian city of Odessa. Milan had become a shipbuilding center, producing 75 lake schooners in 1847.

By 1850, the advent of the railroads and consequent changes in transportation methods had put an end to the town's great prosperity. The canal and the shipyard were eventually abandoned and the warehouses disappeared.

The house

Records indicate the lot on which this house stands was bought in 1841 by Nancy Elliott Edison. Samuel designed the home, and they began building in the fall of the same year. Thomas Alva Edison was born in the house on February 11, 1847.

Edison's parents sold the house in 1854, and the family moved to Port Huron, Michigan. In 1894, Edison's sister, Marion Edison Page, bought the house and added a bathroom and other modern conveniences. Edison became the owner of his birthplace in 1906. On his last visit in 1923, he was shocked to find his old home still lighted by lamps and candles!

Edison's wife, Mina Miller Edison and their daughter Mrs. John Eyre Sloane envisioned opening his birthplace to the public as a memorial and museum. The Edison Birthplace Museum opened on the centennial of the inventor's birth in 1947.

The house has been restored as nearly as possible to its 19th Century appearance. Because much of the Edisons' original furniture was lost in moves and to a disastrous fire at their Port Huron Home, it was impossible to assemble much of the original furniture. Gifts and loans from members of the family and friends and, in some cases, purchases of household articles of the period decorate the house.

Today, this National Historic Site is maintained by the Edison Birthplace Association, Inc., a private, non-profit organization.

A Tour of the House

Entering the house by the side door, the tour starts in the sitting room. One of the family antiques in this room is a portable desk that belonged to Edison's uncle, Simeon Ogden Edison, who was once a resident of the house. Hanging on the wall above the portable desk is the mirror presented to Edison's oldest sister Marion on the occasion of her wedding to Homer Page here in 1849.

Opening out from the back of this room is the bedroom where Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847. The rope bed is decorated with a jacquard coverlet that was handmade in Ohio's Erie County in the 1840s.

The steep stairs opposite the front door lead to the two bedrooms on the second floor. The parents and the middle girls, Harriet and Eliza, slept in these rooms.

Much of the furniture, including the painted pine set and the walnut furniture in the parents' bedroom, the spinning wheel, and the set of six chairs in the parlor, belonged to Marion Edison Page. The knitted "thousand shell design" spread on the walnut bed is attributed to the inventor's mother, Nancy. The straight-back chair to the right of the bed is the type used by girls and women of the time while buttoning their shoes, which explains why the seat is so low to the ground.

Both closets in the Master Bedroom have been converted to display areas. Clothing that belonged to Edison and his wife is on exhibit in this space.

Back on the street-level floor, the north side of the house is taken up by the parlor and a small bedroom directly behind it.

Two pieces of Nancy Elliott Edison's own tea set and two of her coin silver spoons are displayed under the handmade glass dome in the parlor. Her portrait hangs to the left of the door leading to the small bedroom.

The room behind the parlor is now used for exhibits of Edisonia. Display cases contain various inventions, including a phonograph, a stock ticker, and a talking doll. Photographs of Edison with his family and of historic places related to Edison are also on display. A stairway at the back of this room leads down to the large basement kitchen.

Because the house was built into a hillside, the basement kitchen has a door to the backyard and several windows overlooking the flower garden. The kitchen is furnished with articles and utensils of the period. The wall clock was identified by Edison as the one which used to hang in the family kitchen and behind which his mother kept a disciplinary switch.

From the garden outside this room one can view the site of the Milan Canal turning basin. Volunteers from the local 4-H club planted the flower garden. In addition, the Milan Gardening Club maintains a garden next door, behind the building that serves as the museum shop.

References

^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2007-07-27.

External links

Category:National Historic Landmarks in Ohio Category:Museums in Erie County, Ohio Category:1841 architecture Category:Houses in Ohio Category:Historic house museums in Ohio Category:Thomas Edison Edison, Thomas

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[1] "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2007-07-27.

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