Part Of: Edison General File Series -- 1918

[E1874-F] (E-18-74) Real Estate

This folder contains documents relating to Edison's real estate transactions, including land owned by him or offered to him for sale. Among the items for 1918 are letters pertaining to the lease of Edison's land at Menlo Park to the American Grenade Loading Co. and the sale of some of his Silver Lake property to the International Arms & Fuze Co. Also included is a letter from George M. Miller of Sumnytown, Pennsylvania, who tried to interest Edison in a mill along the falls of the Lehigh River for the manufacture of black powder. Although the inventor had already made arrangements with the Black Diamond Powder Co. in Pittston, Pa., he instructed his assistant William H. Meadowcroft to "tell [Henry] Ford about [the] Water Power." Other documents relate to Edison's purchase of property, owned by his Llewellyn Park neighbor Richard M. Colgate, opposite the West Orange laboratory on Valley Road (now Main Street).

Approximately 20 percent of the documents have been selected. The unselected material includes declined offers to buy or sell land; routine business correspondence, some involving Mina Miller Edison; and additional items relating to the West Orange land purchase, including legal documents handled by Henry Lanahan of the Legal Dept.

Courtesy of Thomas Edison National Historical Park.

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