490 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



NOTES ON THE DEVELOPMENT OP TELEPHONE 



SEKVICE, II. 



By FRED De LAND 



PITTSBURG, PA. 



IV. Exploiting The Telephone 



[~N the fall of 1876, Gardiner Greene Hubbard began to systematic- 

 -*- ally exploit the electric-speaking telephone invented by Alexander 

 Graham Bell. In the vicinity of Boston a number of private telephone 

 lines were strung, some of which were two or three miles in length, to 

 connect mills and offices or offices and residences. In some instances, 

 where private telegraph lines already existed, the telegraph instruments 

 were replaced with a pair of telephones. 



On October 9, 1876, a telephone was attached to each end of a 

 telegraph circuit owned and operated by " The Walworth Manufactur- 

 ing Company, extending from their office in Boston to their factory in 

 Cambridge, a distance of about two miles. The company's telegraph 

 battery consisting of nine Daniell's cells, were removed from the circuit, 

 and another of ten carbon elements was substituted." It is recorded 

 that " articulate transmission then took place through the wire. The 

 sounds, at first faint and indistinct, became suddently quite loud and 

 intelligible." Another instance of the early practical use of the tele- 

 phone was in connecting the water works with the central office of the 

 water commissioners, of Cambridge, Mass. On April 4, 1877, a tele- 

 phone circuit was strung to connect the factory of Charles Williams, Jr., 

 in Court Street, Boston, with his residence in Somerville. This is said 

 to be the first telephone circuit constructed in the United States, the 

 earlier ones being transformed telegraph lines. A number of other 

 private telephone lines were built in and about Boston early in 1877. 

 In fact a number of small contractors found it profitable to string 

 private lines, and strove to secure orders for this class of work. For 

 they would run the circuits on the poles of the telegraph companies 

 without permission, or bracket them to house-tops, to trees, to any 

 place that a bracket or a porcelain knob could be attached, paying no 

 attention to property rights. 



In the winter of 1876-77, experimental toll service over telegraph 

 circuits was successful for distances of several hundred miles, even 

 from Boston to New York. In November, 1876, Graham Bell found 

 no difficulty in carrying on conversation over telegraph circuits between 

 New York and Boston, using only a pair of box magneto-telephones, 

 so long as the parallel wires were not in service. " When this hap- 



