"The news of the egg boiling spread quickly."

In the same year that the first New York resident died by electric chair, a much more sanguine use of voltage was displayed: A Manhattan electric supply company boiled an egg with electricity for (perhaps) the first time in NYC history. Wow! A story about this amazing march of scientific progress ran in the July 13, 1890 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. An excerpt:

“The novel experiment of boiling eggs by electricity was tried recently in the office of the electric supply company, Cincinnati, in the masonic temple, on Third street. Of course they were boiled in water, but electricity was the heating agent. Luke Lilley, the city’s assistant electrician, was chief cook. Charley Marshall, the underwriter’s agent, ate the first egg boiled by the agency of the subtle current. It required six amperes (quantity of electricity) and ninety-six volts (pressure or force) to accomplish the operation with about two quarts of water in a huge tin cup, the electric current being connected through the handle of the cup. The news of the egg boiling spread quickly, and as it was about lunch time, brokers, bulls and bears, bankers, insurance men and lawyers crowded the office. About thirteen dozen eggs were consumed, the only disappointment being that a drink did not go with each egg.”

More Old Print Articles:

• Billy goat guards recluse. (1900)
• Kissing bandit captured. (1892)
• A maniac gymnast. (1877)
• Performing bears at Bay Shore. (1895)
• Hobos steal fine clothes from decent folk. (1895)
• Hairy woman thrown through barbershop window, uninjured. (1897)
• Brooklyn judge encounters sea monsters in his bathroom. (1902)
• General Robert E. Lee kisses pretty girls. (1891)
• Brooklyn geezer tries to shoot noisy dogs. (1896)
• Hoaxer pretends to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. (1889)
• Manhattan madman goes on rampage. (1890)
• Fisticuffs at a male beauty pageant. (1893)
• Viennese surgeon performs experimental operations in NYC. (1902)
• Tough girl breaks detective’s nose. (1898)
• Circus Freak gets indigestion after swallowing metal objects. (1904)
• George Francis Train loses his mind. (1888)
• Hunchback paramour has throat cut. (1877)
• Organ grinder has monkey kidnapped. (1899)
• Human vampire behaves poorly. (1892)