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281
Heroes of the Telegraph
·
John Munro
198
In
1873
Edison
was
married
to
Miss
Mary
Stillwell,
of
Newark,
one
of
his
employees.
His
eldest
child,
Mary
Estelle,
was
playfully
surnamed
'Dot,'
and
his
second,
Thomas
Alva,
jun.,
'Dash,'
after
the
signals
of
the
Morse
code.
Mrs.
Edison
died
several
years
ago.
While
seeking
to
improve
the
method
of
duplex
working
introduced
by
Mr.
Steams,
Edison
invented
the
quadruplex,
by
which
four
messages
are
simultaneously
sent
through
one
wire,
two
from
each
end.
Brought
out
in
association
with
Mr.
Prescott,
it
was
adopted
by
the
Western
Union
Telegraph
Company,
and,
later,
by
the
British
Post
Office.
The
President
of
the
Western
Union
reported
that
it
had
saved
the
Company
500,000
dollars
a
year
in
the
construction
of
new
lines.
Edison
also
improved
the
Bain
chemical
telegraph,
until
it
attained
an
incredible
speed.
Bain
had
left
it
capable
of
recording
200
words
a
minute;
but
Edison,
by
dint
of
searching
a
pile
of
books
ordered
from
New
York,
Paris,
and
London,
making
copious
notes,
and
trying
innumerable
experiments,
while
eating
at
his
desk
and
sleeping
in
his
chair,
ultimately
prepared
a
solution
which
enabled
it
to
register
over
1000
words
a
minute.
It
was
exhibited
at
the
Philadelphia
Centenial
Exhibition
in
1876,
where
it
astonished
Sir
William
Thomson.
In
1876,
Edison
sold
his
factory
at
Newark,
and
retired
to
Menlo
Park,
a
sequestered
spot
near
Metuchin,
on
the
Pennsylvania
Railroad,
and
about
twenty-four
miles
from
New
York.
Here
on
some
rising
ground
he
built
a
wooden
tenement,
two
stories
high,
and
furnished
it
as
a
workshop
and
laboratory.
His
own
residence
and
the
cottages
of
his
servants
completed
the
little
colony.
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