A Closer Look At Samuel Edison’s Family
- Dillion Liskai
- 1 day ago
- 8 min read
“Being asked if he enjoyed life, he (Samuel Ogden Edison Jr.) answered poetically: ‘You bet. I’ve been scattering seeds along the pathway of life ever since I began to live, and now I am picking the flowers of memory, and they are very fragrant and comforting.’” - Detroit Free Press, August 6, 1895
Earlier this year, to celebrate the birthday of Thomas Edison’s mother, Nancy Elliott Edison, we took a closer look at her family. Now, to celebrate his father’s birthday, we should take a closer look at the family of Samuel Edison. The story of Samuel Edison’s family is one fit for the silver screen, and it spans two countries and three wars with countless twists, turns, and a few instances of high treason. As poetic as Sam’s introduction to this article was, it is just as poetic to note that the story of the Edison family in the United States began only mere miles from where Thomas Edison forever changed the world in New Jersey.
John Edison, the great-grandfather of Thomas Edison, was, by most accounts, a relatively successful farmer near Caldwell, New Jersey. In 1765, he married Sarah Ogden, and together they had nine children: Samuel, Adonijah, Thomas, Mary, Sarah, Moses, Marcellus, Catharine, and Margaret. While historians tend to disagree about when (or where) he was born, we know definitively that he was born just in time to watch as the colonies he grew up in soon descended into open rebellion against King George III. John actively fought against the Patriot revolutionaries, acting as a guide for the British army. On December 10, 1776, John was caught red-handed aiding and abetting British troops, and he was imprisoned for over 13 months in Morristown, New Jersey. He was found guilty of “High Treason” and sentenced to hang, but his wife, Sarah Ogden, was a member of an influential family and was by some miracle able to secure John’s release. John’s reputation in New Jersey didn’t get any better, as his name was listed in a 1782 indictment for allegedly stealing a horse, and his house was burnt down because he was a Loyalist.
John Edison would not get in trouble in New Jersey much longer, as by 1783, it became increasingly clear that the United States would gain its independence. He and his family had moved north of the border to Digby, Nova Scotia, Canada. The Edison family would reside in Nova Scotia until 1811, when they moved to Elgin County, Ontario. By then, John’s oldest son, Samuel, was 44 and had started quite a family. He had married Nancy Simpson on November 14, 1792, and together, they had eight children: Marcellus, Thomas, David, Henry, Samuel Jr., Eliza, and Snow. He and his family also moved to Elgin County, Ontario. However, a quiet and peaceful life for the Edisons would be upended as tensions between Great Britain and the United States had bubbled over once more as the War of 1812 got underway. Samuel Edison Sr. was commissioned as a Captain of the 3rd Battalion Company of the 1st Regiment of the Middlesex Militia on February 16, 1812, and he, just like his father John, found himself supporting the British against American forces.
Samuel’s time fighting for the British was substantially more successful than his father’s. He saw action at the Siege of Detroit in August of 1812. Led by Major General Isaac Brock and Tecumseh, the British had embarrassed American forces by forcing the surrender of an American city without a fight. He also fought under Major General Brock and Colonel Thomas Talbot at Queenston Heights and earned a British victory there, too. Captain Samuel Edison returned home to Elgin County as a hero, one of the most revered people. He seemingly knew everyone, and Thomas Edison always recalled as a young boy watching his grandfather wave to all who walked past the home. Additionally, Samuel and his wife would leave food on the stove in their kitchen when they left home so passerbys or those without food could have a place to sit down and eat.
After the passing of his wife, Nancy, in 1824, he married Elizabeth Yokum in 1825. He added five more children to the Edison family: Simeon (who would later live in the Edison Birthplace and is buried next to his wife in the Milan Cemetery), Mahlon, Elizabeth, Fordice, and Charles. Tradition maintains that it was around this time that Captain Samuel was given the privilege of renaming his village, calling it Vienna. Things would once again become quiet and peaceful for the Edison family, but trouble was brewing again.
Samuel Ogden Edison Jr., the 6’2” blazing blue-eyed father of Thomas Edison, was deeply unhappy with the political structure in Canada. Unlike his father and grandfather, who had supported the British colonial presence in the country, in an odd twist of fate and fueled by the writings of Thomas Paine, he deeply despised it. Led by William Lyon Mackenzie, the younger Samuel Edison took part in the Mackenzie Rebellion of 1837, an uprising in Upper Canada (now Ontario) that aimed to overthrow the colonial government and establish democratic reforms. After it was swiftly put down, Samuel Edison Jr. soon found himself being hunted like his grandfather for the same crime of high treason. A $500 bounty had been placed upon him. Had he been caught, he likely would have been given the same sentence as his grandfather, but just like John, Sam Jr. had miraculously escaped, fleeing to the United States. By the time Canadian authorities came to search his house, he had vanished. When news reached Samuel Sr. of his son’s escape, he remarked, “Well, looks like Sammy’s long legs saved him this time.” Samuel Jr. never forgot Canada, stating, “Canada is a great country, and I am proud of it, but it was William Lyon Mackenzie and the men of ‘37 who made it a great country.”
He settled in Milan, Ohio, and went to work building the Edison Birthplace, and reunited with his wife Nancy Elliott Edison and their four children: Marion, William, Harriet, and Carlile. The family soon added three more children: Samuel III, Eliza, and Thomas Alva Edison. In 1849, when Thomas was only two years old, the Canadian government issued the Amnesty Act, officially pardoning all of those who partook in the Mackenzie Rebellion in Ontario and its sister rebellion, the Papineau Rebellion in Quebec, paving the way for “Sammy” to go back and introduce his new family members to Grandpa Samuel in Vienna. Grandpa Samuel would pass away on March 27, 1865, and while his tombstone in Vienna reads that he was 103 at his passing, it is more likely that he was 98 years old, a still equally impressive feat.
Like his world-famous son, Samuel Jr. was a man of many talents. Outside of starting rebellions, he was engaged in numerous occupations, including splitting shingles for roofs, tailoring, keeping a tavern, farming, owning a grocery store, and even building an observation tower, which people could pay a small fee to scale in Port Huron. He continued to be a political rabble-rouser during the Civil War, being branded by locals in Port Huron as a “Copperhead”. It is likely that Samuel was not a fan of slavery, but was just a fan of any revolution anywhere. He never backed down from a fight, and after he and his wife were forcibly removed from their home in Port Huron, Samuel’s name was floated as a prime suspect for possibly attempting to light the old home ablaze to get back at the men who took it. After his wife Nancy passed away in 1871, he began a relationship with Mary Sharlow, and they had three children: Marietta, Maude, and Mabel. Near this time, Samuel donated his construction skills to Thomas to help him build his famous Menlo Park Laboratory. Furthermore, Samuel took part in many of his son’s business ventures and even helped him with his inventions.
Although Samuel had many talents, he never initially saw any potential in Thomas. When asked in 1885 by the New York World, Samuel bluntly responded, “Did I foresee his destiny? No, I can’t say that I did. I didn’t think he amounted to very much when he left home and went to selling newspapers on the [railroad] cars.” He had, of course, once given a public spanking to Thomas in the Milan Town Square after Thomas had accidentally burned his barn down as a kid. Samuel credited Thomas’ genius not to himself, but to his wife Nancy, telling the Detroit Free Press in 1895, “His mother was splendidly educated and had great natural ability, and Tom was like her.” He would pass away a year later in 1896 in Norwalk, Ohio, at the age of 92, and the old rebel was laid to rest next to his wife, Nancy, at Lakeside Cemetery in Port Huron, Michigan.
From Revolutionary War prisons to Canadian uprisings and backwoods taverns to the first lightbulb at Menlo Park, Samuel Ogden Edison Jr. and his forebears are a family of resilience, rebellion, and reinvention. Their story is one of grit and tenacity, a story to which chapters could never be finished. The Edison men forced their writers to keep writing. These men never stood still, whether out of loyalty or defiance. They fled, fought, built, and began again, leaving stories and legacies that would one day shape the modern world. They scattered seeds so future generations, including you and me, could pick and marvel at the flowers.
Sources Used and Encouraged for Further Reading
Archives of Ontario. n.d. “The War of 1812: Detroit Frontier, 1812: Victory.” Archives of Ontario. Accessed June 8, 2025. https://www.archives.gov.on.ca/en/explore/online/1812/detroit-victory.aspx
Edison, Thomas A. 2011. The Quotable Edison. Edited by Michele W. Albion. University Press of Florida.
Fahey, Curtis. 2015. “Amnesty Act.” The Canadian Encyclopedia. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/amnesty-act#:~:text=Amnesty%20Act-,Amnesty%20Act%2C%201%20February%201849%2C%20offered%20a%20pardon%20to%20all,any%20exiled%20rebels%20who%20petitioned
Homfray, Irving L., and Canadian Military Institute. 1908. Officers of the British Forces in Canada During The War of 1812-15. Welland, Ontario: Welland Tribune Print. https://www.loc.gov/item/10005045/
Josephson, Matthew. 1992. Edison: A Biography. Wiley.
Pace, Shandi. 2022. “Vienna, Ontario – Small Town Canada.” Small Town Canada. https://www.smalltowncanada.ca/vienna-ontario/
Rayne, M.L. 1895. “Samuel Edison: The Venerable Father of the Great Inventor.” Detroit Free Press (Detroit), August 6, 1895. https://edisondigital.rutgers.edu/document/SC95040a1#?xywh=-57%2C465%2C392%2C371&cv=1
Simonds, William A. 2007. Edison - His Life, His Work, His Genius. Simon & Schuster.
Stamps, Richard B., Bruce Hawkins, and Nancy E. Wright. 1994. Search for the House in the Grove: Archaeological Excavation of the Boyhood Homesite of Thomas A. Edison in Port Huron, Michigan, 1976-1994. Cultural Dynamics.
United States National Park Service. 2015. "He is a coward.” National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/articles/surrender-of-detroit.htm
Dillon Liskai, a native of Clyde, Ohio, is a Bowling Green State University junior. He is pursuing a degree in Adolescent to Young Adult (AYA) Integrated Social Studies Education, specializing in History.
Dillon has been a Thomas A. Edison Birthplace Museum tour guide for three years. When not at school or the museum, he enjoys cheering on the Bowling Green Falcons, spending time with friends and family, and exploring local history.
Have a question for Dillon? Reach out via email at dliskai@tomedison.org!