The eccentric engineer

On 22 December 1882, just three years after Edison's first successful experiments with carbon filament light bulbs,Edward Hibberd Johnson invited some friends (and a few newspapers) to his New York Home. A reporter from the Detroit Post noted: "Last evening I called at the residence of Edward H Johnson, vice-president of Edison's electric company. There, at the rear of the beautiful parlors, was a large Christmas tree presenting a most picturesque and uncanny aspect. It was brilliantly lighted with many colored globes about as large as an English walnut and was turning some six times a minute on a little pine box. There were 80 lights in all encased in these dainty glass eggs, and about equally divided between white, red and blue. As the tree turned, the colors alternated, all the lamps going out and being re-lit at every revolution. The result was a continuous twinkling of dancing colors, red, white, blue, white, red, blue all evening. I need not tell you that the scintillating evergreen was a pretty sight -one can hardly imagine anything prettier. The ceiling was crossed obliquely with two wires on which hung 28 more of the tiny lights; and all the lights and the fantastic tree itself with its starry fruit were kept going by the slight electric current brought from the main office on a filmy wire. The tree was kept revolving by a little hidden crank below the floor which was turned electricity".