Edward Hibberd Johnson

Edward Hibbard Johnson (born 1846 ? ) was an inventor and business associate of American inventor Thomas Alva Edison. He was involved in many of Edison's projects, and was a partner in an early organization which evolved into the General Electric Company, one of the largest Fortune 500 companies in the United States. When Johnson was Vice President of the Edison Electric Light Company he created the first known electrically illuminated Christmas tree at his home in New York City in 1882. Edward H. Johnson became the Father of Electric Christmas Tree Lights.

Biographical Information

Protégé of William Jackson Palmer =

In 1867, a very optimistic, eager 30-year-old retired Union Army general named William Jackson Palmer, and his 21-year-old chief assistant Edward Hibbard Johnson, headed west from their hometown of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. General Palmer was the construction manager for the Kansas Pacific Railroad, mapping routes through New Mexico and Arizona to the Pacific coast.

The Kansas Pacific Railroad was an enterprise of the Philadelphia interests who controlled the Pennsylvania Railroad (whose president John Edgar Thomson had employed Palmer as his personal secretary before the War). Under General Palmer's direction the Kansas Pacific was extended from Kansas City, Missouri, reaching Denver, Colorado in August, 1870.

Hiring young Thomas A. Edison

In 1871, Edward H. Johnson as the assistant to General William J. Palmer, was sent back East to manage the Automatic Telegraph Company. When Johnson hired young 24-yaer old Thomas A. Edison, the contracted employee quickly outshone the particular company, and his enormous talents were brought to the attention of the principals of the company by Johnson. Of Edison, Johnson later wrote:

"He ate at this desk and slept in a chair. In six weeks he had gone through the books, written a volume of abstracts, and made two thousand experiments…and produced a solution."

The Philadelphians then backed Edison's evolution into a full time inventor, established in his "invention factory" in Menlo Park, New Jersey. Johnson became Edison's trusted executive as his inventions and businesse developed in teh 1870s and later.

Recruiting Frank J. Sprague =

Johnson apparently had a good eye for young talent. In 1883, he is also credited with recruiting naval officer Frank J. Sprague, who he met at an International electrical exposition, into Edison's organization. Sprague became a brilliant electrical genius and inventor, and was responsible for major developments in electric railways and electric elevators which were instrumental in the growth of U.S. cities in the later 19th and early 20th centuries.

Partner in the Edison Companies

Edward H. Johnson was a partner in the Edison Electric Lamp Company, a partnership formed in early 1881. Other partners were Thomas Edison, Charles Batchellor, and Francis R. Upton. In May 1881 the company changed its name to the Edison Lamp Company. A year later it moved its factory from Menlo Park to East Newark (Harrison), New Jersey. The partnership became a corporation in 1884. The company merged with several other Edison companies in 1889 to become the Edison General Electric Company. The same year, it acquired the Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company. On April 15, 1892, it merged with the Thomson-Houston Electric Company, another electrical manufacturer, in the consolidation forming the General Electric Company, which is today one of the largest Fortune 500 companies in the United States.

Heading the forerunner of Con Edison

Edward H. Johnson was also became president of Edison Electric Illuminating Company of New York. This company was organized on December 17, 1880, to construct generating stations in New York City. Its first central station, located on Pearl Street in lower Manhattan, opened on September 4, 1882. The company was the prototype for other local illuminating companies that were established in the United States during the 1880s, and was a predecessor of Con Edison, Inc., the electric utility company which powers New York City today.

First electric Christmas tree lights

File:First Electric Tree.jpg

First Christmas tree with electric lights, in the home of Edward H. Johnson in New York City, December 22, 1882.

The the first known electrically-illuminated Christmas tree was the creation of Edward H. Johnson. While he was Vice President of the Edison Electric Light Company, he had Christmas tree bulbs especially made for him. He proudly displayed his Christmas tree which was hand-wired with 80 red, white and blue electric light bulbs the size of walnuts on December 22, 1882 at his home on Fifth Avenue in New York City. The story was reported by a Detroit reporter, and Johnson became the Father of Electric Christmas Tree Lights

From that point on, electrically illuminated Christmas trees, indoors and outdoors, grew with mounting enthusiasm in the United States and elsewhere. In 1895, U.S. President Grover Cleveland proudly sponsored the first electrically lit Christmas tree in the White House. It was a huge specimen, featuring more than a hundred multicolored lights. The first commercially produced Christmas tree lamps were manufactured in strings of nine sockets by the Edison General Electric Co. of Harrison, N.J. and advertised in the Dec 1901 issue of the Ladies' Home Journal. Each socket took a miniature 2 candlepower carbon-filament lamp.

External Links

• A Brief History of Electric Christmas Lighting in America
• The story of Christmas Tree Lights
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