Thomas Edison Does a Big Favor for a Friend With a Problem, Intervening to Find Him Work in Canada
He needs to leave, says Edison, because he “has gotten into a woman scrape”
John Kruesi apprenticed as a locksmith in Switzerland, and migrated to the United States where he settled in Newark, New Jersey. There he met Thomas Edison, who was impressed with the young Swiss immigrant and took a liking to him, employing him in his workshop starting in 1872. He became Edison’s head...
John Kruesi apprenticed as a locksmith in Switzerland, and migrated to the United States where he settled in Newark, New Jersey. There he met Thomas Edison, who was impressed with the young Swiss immigrant and took a liking to him, employing him in his workshop starting in 1872. He became Edison’s head machinist through his Newark and Menlo Park periods, responsible for translating Edison’s numerous rough sketches into working devices. Since constructing and testing models was central to Edison’s method of inventing, Kruesi’s skill in doing this was critical to Edison’s success as an inventor. By the late 1880s, Kruesi was General Manager of the Edison Machine Works, a company set up to produce dynamos, large electric motors, and other components of electrical illumination. In 1889 the Machine Works business moved to Schenectady, NY. However Kruesi was still assisting Edison in a variety of other projects, and Edison was hoping to get him back from Schenectady to New Jersey where Edison himself was located.
in 1891, Edison developed an enormous complex of mines, crushers, separators, and subsidiary buildings that came to be known as “The Works of the New Jersey and Pennsylvania Concentrating Company.” Kruesi had an interest in the company. This company produced briquettes of concentrated iron ore. The plant finally closed, never to reopen, on September 30, 1900. In its highest level of activity, the plant employed nearly 500 men.
Autograph letter signed, Ogden, the site of his mining operation as it was getting underway, September 23, 1891, to Kruesi. “I have a friend who has gotten into a woman scrape and wants to go to Canada for a while. The young man is a contractors superintendent, has had charge of large numbers of men in road work, docks, heavy machinery. He is getting $1800 per year but if you can give him something in Canada for few months, salary is no object – say $15 per week or more. Yours, Edison.” This shows a side of Edison one really never sees, as his concern to help a friend is set off against his seeming lack of interest in the woman’s dilemma.
This letter is unpublished. We obtained it from the Kruesi descendants, and it has never before been offered for sale.
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