Metuchen Edison History Features

Recollections of

Boyhood Days

In Old Metuchen

By

David Trumbull Marshall

Published by The Case Publishing Co., Flushing NY 1930

(Second Edition)- (c) 1930

Edison Works Long Hours.

Mr. H. Alexander Campbell, of Metuchen, at the time of the building of the Edison Laboratory at Menlo Park, N.J., was a carpenter and builder. He worked on the Laboratory buildings and at other carpenter work for Mr. Edison. He tells the following incident:

Often Mr. Edison would not go home for days at a time. Although the laboratory was only about a city block from his house he just would not take the time to go home; he would lie down for an hour and some times two, leaving instructions with his assistants when to awaken him. One time when he was very tired they decided to let him sleep until he woke up. This resulted in a good calling down, the air around the old laboratory being quite blue for a while, and their being told that if it ever happened again the whole lot of them would be fired. After that no one ever dared disobey his orders.

One time when Mr. Edison hadn't been home for two weeks, I was at work in his house with some of my men and saw Mr. Edison coming up the path, walking as though he were asleep. The guest room was opposite Mr. Edison's room and the door was open. When he got upstairs he walked right in the open door and threw himself down on the bed. Mrs. Edison came and stopped all work and said, "He has gone in my spare room and rolled right over on the bed in all his dirt and grease on my nice white counterpanes and pillow shams, but I don't care as long as he gets rest and sleep."