Like the mansions the factory masters the
Industrial Revolution Edison's magnificent house was to
overlook the workshops and chimneys that provided his income."
Charles Batchelor had been Edison's side since he
joined the inventor's staff the early 1870s.11
BUILDING THE LABORATORY
Edison bought the land which his laboratory was to
stand January 1887.
The inventor exerted his powerful influence, firing Holly,
denouncing bad workmanship, and constantly changing the plans. produced plans for a
handsome three-story building 250 foot long and foot wide,
and Batchelor spent the summer turning these plans into bricks
and mortar. Henry Holly, the architect Glenmont, was
retained design the laboratory.
In the spring gave his assistant Charles Batchelor the task
of preparing drawings for the laboratory and overseeing its
construction. Born in
England, was one the many workmen who left the factories
of the "Black Country" for the textile mills Massachusetts
. The acres were situated the main
road through the Oranges, the bottom the hill that led up
to Glenmont. Edison was always around, either coming down from
Glenmont stopping his way the Lamp Works Harrison.
Yet Batchelor worked steadily on, accustomed was the
ways the "old man
