DEVELOPMENT OF TELEPHONE SERVICE 



229 



NOTES ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF TELEPHONE 



SEKVICE. IV. 



BY fked deland 



VII. Some Early Telephone Switchboards 

 ri iHE switchboards in the New Haven and other pioneer telephone ex- 

 -*- changes were far more crude mechanically than the marvelous 

 and sensitive hand telephone. The first switchboard that Mr. Coy 

 installed in New Haven had a capacity of only eight lines, but as 

 every line was a party-line, and as an average of twelve subscribers 

 were on each line, the board served a hundred or more subscribers. 

 This board was designed and built by Mr. Coy, in December, 1877, 

 with the aid of a local carpenter, and formed a part of the partition 



that separated the office from the battery-room. So far as known no 

 photographs of the exchange or of the board were ever taken, and 

 when the partition was removed the switchboard no longer existed. 

 However, in Fig. 6 is an excellent reproduction of a rough sketch made 

 from memory many years ago, of what Mr. Coy asserts was the first 

 switchboard, though others claim that the board had no annunciator 

 attached during the first two months. 



Crude as the construction of the board was. without cords or plugs, 



