DEVELOPMENT OF TELEPHONE SERVICE $oi 



lows : " Prof. Bell's Telephone. I am prepared to build and equip 

 telephone lines at moderate rates. Telegraphic lines, with Morse or 

 other instruments, built of the best material. Please call and examine 

 our telephone lines in operation." In November, 1877, Dr. Crane, a 

 dentist in Hartford, had a party-line on which were six physicians and 

 six druggists, including Smith, and on November 15 Crane advertised : 

 " Messages sent direct from my office to the following places by tele- 

 phone." On January 24, 1878, the Conrant announced that " When 

 word came to Hartford of the accident on the Connecticut Western, 

 information was dispatched to the central office from whence run wires 

 to many physicians of this city. In a very short space of time and 

 within a few minutes of each other, nearly a score of doctors and sur- 

 geons were at the depot." 



As a rule, in the beginning the messages sent over these early tele- 

 phone lines were not switched through, but received at one telephone 

 by ' Central ' and repeated to the subscriber through another telephone. 

 For there was one telephone for each circuit terminating in the central 

 office; if there were six subscriber-lines, then there were six hand tele- 

 phones hanging on the wall of the central office. But this was not the 

 case at Bridgeport, Ansonia, New Haven or Meriden. 



In May, 1877, Mr. Edwin T. Holmes used Bell's hand telephone 

 as an accessory to his central-office burglar-alarm system in Boston, 

 one set of wires serving for both purposes. Five of these alarm wires 

 were cut through a small brass telegraphic pin switchboard, enabling 

 a hand telephone to be connected or plugged-in on any line. Mr. F. 

 E. Kinsman, who was then in the employ of Mr. Holmes, said that 

 (in August, 1877) the service was not given by connecting any two 

 circuits together, but that " it was made by the operator taking the 

 message and turning about and talking through the telephone to the 

 party to whom the message was given." Three months later Mr. 

 Holmes installed hand telephones in many of the wholesale and com- 

 mission houses to enable these subscribers to the system to notify the 

 Holmes central office to tell the express company to call for packages 

 ready for shipment. Then a central switchboard system was installed 

 and, in March, 1878, there were 256 hand telephones in use. The use 

 of hand telephones only is said to have continued in this system for 

 more than twelve years, although the number of subscribers finally 

 exceeded 500. 



