assengers(www.hfmgv.org/ histories/ edison/ tae.html). He also printed a weekly newspaper, the Weekly Herald. He spent all he earned on books and equipment for his chemical laboratory. When trying to hop aboard a moving train, a trainman helped him aboard by pulling his ears. This in turn, led to the inventors deafness. His deafness could have been cured by an operation. But Thomas refused the operation. He said being deaf helped him concentrate(www.lucidcafe.com/ library/ 196feb/ edison.html).At the age of 16, Edison roamed the Midwest as a telegraph operator. He became a telegraph assistant at Stratford Junction, Canada. His job was to report to Toronto every hour by telegraph signal. Edison thought this was a waste of time. He invented something that sent a signal even if he was asleep. This was his first invention - the transmitter and receiver for the automatic telegraph. From this point on Thomas Edison determined that he wanted to become an inventor.In Boston, at the age of 21 Edison patented his unsuccessful vote counter. The vote counter was used to speed up the way of counting votes. He determined that he would no longer invent things unless there was a need for them. In 1869 he refined the vote counter and sold it, with the $40,000 he was paid he started a laboratory and a factory in Newark, N.J.(Scientists).On Christmas day, 1871, Thomas Edison married his first wife Mary G. Stillwell. Thomas was 24 and Mary was 16. They had three children, Marion, Thomas Jr, and William. Mary died due to typhoid fever, however, in 1884. Thomas again married, to Mina Miller in 1886. They also had three children, Madeline, Charles, and Theodore(Pathways). In 1873 Edison, invented the "duplex" telegraph machine that sent two messages at one time over the same wire. This was an improvement to the telegraph already invented. He later combined two "duplex" telegraph machines to make a "quadruplex" machine, one that sent four ...
