How a train rescue in Mount Clemens launched Thomas Edison
A teenage Thomas Edison learned telegraphy after rescuing a child at the Mount Clemens train depot.
One of the turns that set Thomas Edison on the path to becoming America’s most famous inventor happened at a little train depot in Mount Clemens. In 1862, Edison was a 15-year-old who sold candy and newspapers on the Grand Trunk Railroad. One day at the Mount Clemens station, he saw the stationmaster’s toddler son playing on the tracks. A freight car was rolling right at the boy. Edison dashed out and pulled him to safety. The grateful father was station agent James Mackenzie. He had no money to reward Edison, so he offered something better. He taught the boy telegraphy. That skill became Edison’s first real trade. Some of his earliest inventions grew out of it. (The two stayed close. Mackenzie later came to work at Edison’s famous Menlo Park laboratory.) The 1859 depot where it happened is still standing. It now houses the Michigan Transit Museum, with railroad exhibits and seasonal train rides.
The Michigan Transit Museum is in the historic Grand Trunk depot at 198 Grand Street, Mount Clemens (michigantransitmuseum.com).