Edison

How Edison began

Edison is a small village in Gilead Township, Morrow County, two miles west of the county seat, Mount Gilead. It began as a railroad station on the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati line when trains first ran in February 1851, got a post office as Gilead Station in 1874 and was renamed Levering in 1880, when the two-and-a-half-mile Short Line from Mount Gilead opened. The post office took the name Edison in 1881, after the inventor Thomas Edison, according to Wikipedia. The village had 152 people in 1880 and 387 in 1910, living at a crossing of two railroads.

Settled 1817 (Gilead Township, by the brothers Lewis and Ralph Hardenbrook); the railroad station dates from 1851, by The railroad and the Mount Gilead Short Line trustees; the township's first settlers were the Hardenbrooks.

Where the name comes from

The place was first the station Gilead Station (post office 1874-1881). When the Short Line to Mount Gilead was about to open in 1880, Perrin's 1880 county history says the name Gilead Station 'seemed a little out of place' with the same name at both ends of the line, so it was changed to Levering 'in honor of a prominent citizen of Mount Gilead' (Perrin's biographical sketch of Allen Levering adds that the name Levering Station, in April 1880, was a compliment to him for having fathered the Short Line bill in the legislature). Baughman (1911) agrees that the name went from Gilead Station to Levering and later to Edison. Wikipedia says Edison was named for the inventor Thomas Edison; the post office was named Edison from 1881 (postal listing).

Before the town

No Native village or site is recorded at Edison itself. Baughman (1911) says that for several years after settlement began in Gilead Township, Indians passed to and fro on hunting and trading expeditions and sometimes camped in the neighborhood; they bound their infants to cradle boards and, when trading at a cabin, stood the babies against the outside wall, where they stayed quiet while the parents bargained inside. A trail or blazed track much used by settlers ran from Owl Creek past the Hardenbrook and Nichols places to Shaw Creek and the Sandusky plains. The village lies north of the Greenville Treaty line of 1795, placed at Cardington, so the land was not ceded by that treaty itself; the later treaty that opened it to sale is not identified in the sources checked.

• Trail from Owl Creek to Shaw Creek and the Sandusky plains (trail) — through Gilead Township past the Hardenbrook, Nichols and DeWitt farms, before and during early settlement, 1810s-1820s (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1817 — The brothers Lewis and Ralph Hardenbrook, from Jefferson County, Ohio, buy and settle the southeast quarter of section 2, the first settlers of Gilead Township.
2. 1824 — On September 30 Jacob Young of Knox County lays out the village of Whetstone, soon Mount Gilead, two miles east of the future Edison.
3. 1835 — Gilead Township is organized in June, after the area had been part of Marvin Township.
4. 1848 — Morrow County is organized from parts of Delaware, Marion, Knox and Richland counties, and Mount Gilead becomes the county seat.
5. 1851 — In February the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati railroad begins running; a station is placed two miles west of Mount Gilead, the future Edison, after Mount Gilead failed to secure the main line.
6. 1868 — The Toledo and Ohio Central railroad is projected, later crossing the Cleveland-Columbus line at Edison.
7. 1874 — On June 24 a post office named Gilead Station is established.
8. 1878 — The legislature passes the act for the Mount Gilead Short Line in the spring; Dr. J. P. Vigor settles at the station, which Baughman later calls Levering Station.
9. 1879 — In April the Mount Gilead mayor calls an election on the Short Line, which carries; the vote is on a tax of $18,000, with another $3,000 voted later.
10. 1880 — The Short Line opens on May 1, with eight trains a day between Mount Gilead and the station, which is renamed Levering; the village has 152 residents.
11. 1881 — The post office is renamed Edison (the Gilead Station office is listed through 1881).
12. 1890 — The village population grows to 345, more than doubling in a decade.
13. 1911 — Baughman's county history describes Edison as a station at the crossing of the Big Four's Cleveland-Columbus division and Toledo and Ohio Central branch, with 387 inhabitants, a hotel, a church, a bank, an ice-cream factory and a store; E. B. Blair is postmaster.

Stories

Where is Levering Station?

When the Mount Gilead Short Line was built, its western end was a station called Gilead Station, the same name as the county seat at the other end of the 2.5-mile track. Since that seemed out of place on a through route, the railroad renamed it Levering in 1880, for a prominent citizen of Mount Gilead. Soon after, Perrin's 1880 county history says, a man boarded a Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Indianapolis train at a station fifty miles south and handed the conductor a ticket on which 'Levering Station' was written in ink, not printed. The conductor looked at the ticket, turned it over, looked at the passenger, put it in his punch, took it out unpunched, and finally blurted out where on earth Levering Station was. A year later the post office was renamed Edison, and the question did not come up again.

A railroad built to give the county seat a main line

When the Cleveland and Columbus railroad was built in 1850-51 it passed two miles south of Mount Gilead, the new county seat, which thus lost the main line while Cardington won it. Years later Mount Gilead's leaders agitated for a spur. The legislature authorized it in spring 1878, a local vote in April 1879 approved a tax of $18,000 (and $3,000 more later), and the Short Line opened on May 1, 1880, running 2.5 miles from the courthouse square to the junction at the later Edison. It was leased to the main-line railroad for twenty years, and ran eight trains a day. Baughman called it of great advantage to the town and surrounding country. Edison's whole reason for being was that crossing of two rail lines.

Babies on the cabin wall

Baughman's 1911 county history says that in the years after the first Gilead Township settlers arrived, Native people passed back and forth on hunting and trading trips and sometimes camped nearby. They carried their infants on cradle boards; when they traded or asked for food at a settler's cabin, they would set the baby upright against the outside wall, and the children stayed quiet while their parents were inside. The author does not name the nation, but says the trail from Owl Creek to Shaw Creek and the Sandusky plains was much used.

Local history sources: archive.org · archive.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · postalhistory.com

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Roster as of 2026-01-01: county board of elections.

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