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Thomas Alva Edison
In Menlo Park, NJ

Francis Jehl went to work for Thomas Edison at his Menlo Park laboratory in February, 1879. Beginning in 1937, he wrote a three volume book describing his work under Edison and life in Menlo Park during the Edison years. Menlo Park Reminiscences, by Francis Jehl, written in Edison's restored Menlo Park laboratory, was published by the Edison Institute, Dearborn, Michigan (Copyright 1937-1941).

Mrs. Jordan's Boarding House
Page 26-31

My first task--that of cleaning and charging the Bunsen battery cells--took most of the day and the November dusk was already gathering when Mr. Edison finally checked it over, as I have related, and discovered that I knew 'the ropes.' Then he asked:

'Where are you going to stay?'

Now, I had come directly to the laboratory from the depot and had made no effort yet to find lodgings. I told him so.

'Then you can have the rest of the day to yourself', he suggested. 'Perhaps you can get a room over there.'

As he spoke, he led me to one of the windows on the south side of the second floor and pointed past the office building to a drab-colored frame house with green shutters, a short distance down Christie Street.

'Go over there,' he told me, 'and talk to Mrs. Jordan.'

I picked up my satchel and made my way downstairs and out the front door, inwardly amused at his reference to the 'rest of the day.' Already it was nearing the hour when Christian folks had supper and went to bed. But I remembered that the passing of time meant nothing to Mr. Edison - which explained the seeming inconsistency of his remark.

There was a path leading to a side gate in the rear of the office building. Beyond it stretched Christie Street running north and south past the picket fence on the east side of the compound. I crossed the street diagonally and found myself in front of the first of two dwellings which were alike in appearance and construction The second proved to be the one that Mr. Edison had indicated to me. The first was occupied, I found later, by a mechanic employed in the Menlo Park machine shop, Charles Dean. [Subsequently, Charles L. Clarke lived here also]

I turned in at the far gate and set foot for the first time on the porch of the Jordan boarding house which was to become my home for more than a year and which during that period was to achieve fame as the first dwelling house ever lighted by electricity.

In a few moments I was introducing myself to a slight, frail little woman who was the proprietress. Business was not yet brisk and she was glad to see a new lodger. She escorted me up the narrow winding stairs and into a large room at the front of the house.

Although I did not know it at the time I came later to the conclusion that the room she gave me was the best she had. It looked out over the porch and had an additional window on the far side, making three windows in all. The furnishings were plain but ample--large, clean bed, commode with wash bowl and water pitcher, bureau and a few chairs. Board and room, I learned, were to cost five or six dollars a week.

I accepted the room at once and after unpacking my satchel by candlelight and hanging up my clothes, went downstairs and took a seat in the dining room where two or three men were already at the table. By that time darkness had fallen and a coal-oil lamp furnished the light for our supper.

One of the men seemed to be a sort of 'star boarder,' a large, stout individual, jolly and friendly. Ere long I discovered that he was 'Griff', Mr. Edison's secretary. [Stockton L. Griffin] After we had become acquainted, he asked me how I happened to get my job there.

'Through G. P. Lowery,' I told him.

'He's a good card to have,' commented the secretary, dryly.

Supper was a bountiful meal with meat, vegetables and fruit forming the main dishes. The big meal of the day - dinner--was at noon when soup, potatoes and the pies, for which Mrs. Jordan was noted, were served.

After the meal we sat for a time in the living room while Mrs. Jordan and her little ten-year-old daughter did the dishes in the kitchen just beyond. Mr. Edison s home, I learned, was down the road a ways, and embraced not only a good-sized residence but also a stable and windmill. He had at that time two youngsters, known to the Menlo Park residents as 'Dot' and 'Dash', after the Morse alphabet. 'Dot' was about five years old and a lively child, fully capable of chaperoning her younger brother, whose true name was Thomas Alva Edison, Jr.

Opposite the Edison home near the road junction stood another house not quite so large as the former but of more than usual size. John Kruesi, the head mechanic and assistant, lived there, as did Charles Batchelor whom I have already mentioned. Beyond their home was an excellent highway that disappeared among the woods and fields in the distance. It was the main-traveled road between Philadelphia and New York City and led from Menlo Park toward the little village of Metuchen about two miles distant, thence to New Brunswick, Trenton and Philadelphia.

Leading down, as it did, from the Edison laboratory to the main highway, Christie Street was the real center of the village. Along its length was installed the first electric street lighting system in the world. Edison was a familiar figure on the plank walk that ran from his laboratory to his home. He generally wore a skullcap or farmer's wide-brimmed straw, walked with both hands in the front pockets of his trousers (as was the style at that time), and never seemed to notice the beauties of nature on all sides of him. When he went to New York City he always donned a high hat, and on his return to Menlo Park, brought it to the laboratory with him.

In later years, the boarding house bore a painted sign 'Lunch Room. Many of the distinguished visitors who called to see Edison were served there.

Perhaps a brief explanation about the plan of Mrs. Jordan's boarding house might not be out of place here. It comprised two separate apartments, each a unit in itself. One was shut apart from the other and the communicating doors were usually kept locked. In one half lived Mrs. Jordan and her daughter and the ocher was given over to the boarders. Occasionally the door between the two front rooms downstairs was unlocked and that on the family side was made available to lodgers or visitors as a sitting room. The influx of lodgers taxed the capacity of the little dwelling and it was necessary to use the original sitting room as an overflow dining room to make possible a second table at mealtimes.

Mr. Edison used to walk down the street past the house when he returned home after the long hours at the laboratory. Frequently at night after I had retired in my room I heard his footsteps on the walk as he trotted homeward. On such occasions as he passed the house during the day, he stopped to chat with Mrs. Jordan, or with those of us who happened to be loafing on the stoop when the weather was nice.

Within a few days after my arrival, Francis R. Upton, who was to serve as Mr. Edison's mathematician, came to the boarding house and was assigned to the small room at the top of the stairs adjoining mine. From then on until he was married, he and I were fellow boarders.

Upton was a keen young chap, who had studied at Princeton and later under the great Helmholtz in Germany. He had taken a postgraduate course at Johns Hopkins University, and was well versed in the sciences.

It was Upton who was destined forty years later to become the first president of the Edison Pioneers. During a speech delivered by him on February 11, 1918, he described briefly how he began his work at Menlo Park.

'I joined Mr. Edison in November, 1878,' said he. 'At that time he had done some work in arc lighting and was going thoroughly through the art. The first time I worked with him was downstairs in the old laboratory in the small room just back of the front door. His intuition was then clearly marked, for his first line of calculations was on the general proposition if you double the resistance of the electric light, you would need only one-half the copper to feed the light.'

The whistle, calling the mechanics and workmen to their tasks in the machine shop, blew at seven o'clock in the morning. Those working in the laboratory with Mr. Edison did not follow its summons for they were likely to remain long after hours; but no matter how late they worked the night before, they usually rose early in the morning to be on hand for breakfast. The first who got to the table had the choice helpings and sometimes could squeeze in a second helping before the late comers arrived.

It was still dark when I stepped forth from the boarding house to go across to my first day's work at the laboratory, and a cold rain was falling. I put up my overcoat collar and breasted the wind along the board walk to the point nearest the side gate where we splashed across and raced into the compound.

The long gray building loomed up through the rain like a ghostly palace, its flickering gas frames already blazing a welcome in the black windows. Solitary gleams marked the low brick machine shop at the far side of the rectangle, but the office building on our left was still shrouded in gloom.

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Last updated by Jim Halpin on 6/23/99.