50 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



contracts, for which he was paid a commission of one dollar each. The 

 first contract thus secured was that of the New Haven Flour Company 

 for five telephones, including one in each of its stores and one in the 

 residence of its manager, Mr. George E. Thompson. 



Mr. Coy commenced installing the telephones in November and it 

 was his intention to have had his exchange in operation early in De- 

 cember, 1877, but so numerous were the mechanical difficulties that 

 had to be overcome, so many electrical problems required solving, and 

 so slow were the shipments of telephones, that it was not until Jan- 

 uary 28, 1878, that the exchange was formally opened, the first service 

 being given on January 21, to about thirty subscribers. 



Following the formal opening, the number of subscribers increased 

 rapidly, and on February 21, 1878, appeared the first regular list of 

 subscribers to a commercial telephone exchange. Fifty stations were 

 listed. The second list appeared on March 9, 1878, less than three 

 weeks after the first, and recorded about one hundred and twenty-five 

 stations. On April 8, 1878, came the third list with two hundred and 

 twenty-seven subscribers, including forty-two residences. Thencefor- 

 ward there was a steady growth. In all these lists names only were 

 shown. Numbering the subscribers to facilitate rapidity in securing 

 connections was an afterthought. Even so late as April, 1880, and 

 in so important a city as New York, the list of subscribers contained 

 no telephone numbers, though there were about one thousand five hun- 

 dred names distributed through six exchanges. 



The rates established by Mr. Coy were only eighteen dollars a year 

 for a telephone in either the office or the house. But it should be borne 

 in mind that the circuits were of single iron wire and grounded, and 

 that from ten to sixteen subscribers were on a line, a number that 

 would not be tolerated in modern business service. Like many modern 

 telephone men, Mr. Coy did not base his rates on what he thought the 

 service was likely to cost him, for the eighteen-dollar rate was estab- 

 lished before a pole had been erected, but on what he thought the 

 public would pay. In January, 1877, the American District Telegraph 

 Company introduced a rate of eighteen dollars a year for its call-box 

 system in New Haven and cities of similar size, while it charged thirty 

 dollars a year in the large cities. So Mr. Coy concluded he could sup- 

 ply a telephone as cheaply as a district-box could be furnished; and 

 that is how the eighteen-dollar rate came to be established. Thus, as 

 early as February, 1878, Mr. Coy was advertising in the local papers 

 that ' the company rents them at the extremely low price of five cents 

 per day, thereby placing telephones within the reach of all/ And on 

 February 14 it was stated that Mr. Coy was ' supplying telephones in 

 any part of the city, including service to Fair Haven and Westville 

 (separate boroughs, one four miles, the other seven miles distant) for 



