Thomas A. Edison, born in this house in 1847, later recalled only scattered memories of Milan because he left when he was not quite seven years old. He remembered the wheat elevators on the canal, Gay shipyard, and the launching of new boats, when the land called the Hogback seemed filled with the town's entire population. He also recalled a public square crowded at times with farmers' teams and many wagons bringing oak staves for barrels, and he could just remember Prairie Schooners encamped in front of his house about 1849 or 1850, which he later learned were carrying adventurers to California in search of gold. The small gabled brick cottage where he was born had been built in 1841 and designed by his father, Samuel Edison, a shingle maker. Although the family moved to Port Huron, Michigan, in 1854, Edison cherished these early memories and bought the house from his sister's family in 1906.