ALS signed “TAE,” three pages, 5 x 8, no date. Letter to his wife Mina, addressing her as “Darling Billy.” In part: "Mr. Upton is surveying for a new Railroad track to reach some very good ore about 1000 feet along the mine. It seems he learned the art at school so he comes in handy…Be sure and take Toughy this time & be careful about walking over tracks if anything should happen it would break me down as I am overworked. I have thought of all of you very much lately probably because there are very few problems to solve just now." In very good to fine condition, with intersecting folds, with central vertical fold through signature, a uniform shade of toning, a bit of light feathering to signature, a bit of mild wrinkling, and a couple ink blots to a few letters.
A creative genius, Edison here reveals himself to be only human, as he expresses devoted concern for his wife and admits to being overworked. In a break from his strenuous days, he pauses to assure his family of his love, noting “ I have thought of all of you very much lately” as, to his surprise, “there are very few problems to solve just now.” It appears that he had much to do with the aforementioned work undertaken by physicist and mathematician Francis Robbins Upton, who graduated from Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts in 1870, studied at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, and in Berlin, as well as earning a master’s degree at Princeton University. In 1878, he joined Edison’s Menlo Park, New Jersey, laboratory to address technical problems in a mathematical way, including electric light, the watt-hour meter, and large dynamos. His surveying work also proved extraordinary, as Edison notes, “It seems he learned the art at school so he comes in handy.” Based on its content and reference to reaching “some very good ore about 1000 feet along the mine,” this letter likely dates to the late 1890s, when Upton persuaded Edison to pursue an eventually unsuccessful ore-milling venture. A unique combination of personal and business content in an unusually long handwritten letter. Pre-certified PSA/DNA and RR Auction COA.
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