The Chord of Steel: the Story of the Invention of the Telephone Date of First Publication: 1960 Author: Thomas B
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* A Distributed Proofreaders Canada eBook * This eBook is made available at no cost and with very few restrictions. These restrictions apply only if (1) you make a change in the eBook (other than alteration for different display devices), or (2) you are making commercial use of the eBook. If either of these conditions applies, please contact a https://www.fadedpage.com administrator before proceeding. Thousands more FREE eBooks are available at https://www.fadedpage.com. This work is in the Canadian public domain, but may be under copyright in some countries. If you live outside Canada, check your country's copyright laws. IF THE BOOK IS UNDER COPYRIGHT IN YOUR COUNTRY, DO NOT DOWNLOAD OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS FILE. Title: The Chord of Steel: The Story of the Invention of the Telephone Date of first publication: 1960 Author: Thomas B. Costain (1885-1965) Date first posted: Oct. 2, 2020 Date last updated: Oct. 2, 2020 Faded Page eBook #20201002 This eBook was produced by: Al Haines, Cindy Beyer & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net The Chord of Steel The Story of the Invention of the Telephone THOMAS B. COSTAIN Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York Copyright © 1960 by Thomas B. Costain All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America Foreword T is not the full story of the invention of the telephone; nor is it, in any sense, a biography of Alexander Graham Bell. My sole purpose has been to tell of a few eventful years which began with the arrival of the Bell family in Brantford, Ontario, and the purchase of their home on a bend of the Grand River called Tutelo Heights, and which ended when the son of the family demonstrated by three remarkably successful tests that the human voice could be heard, clearly and understandably, after traveling over miles of telegraph wire. Brantford’s part in the invention ended there. My reason for telling the story again is that the world at large has had little chance to learn all that took place in that very important span of time. Driving through the Ontario city, and seeing the splendid monument erected there to commemorate the event, people are too often puzzled and surprised. They are prone to say, “But the telephone was invented in Boston.” A motion picture was made about the remarkable young Scot and the miracle he achieved, in which there was no mention, if my memory serves me right, of Brantford. A travelogue of Canada included a shot of the monument but then proceeded to defeat its own purpose by calling the city Brentwood; a mistake which has been repeated in at least one article since. Alexander Graham Bell has said that the telephone was the work of many men and that the invention will never be completed. The part of this most modest of men was in the inception of the great idea and the devising of instruments which made it possible for people to speak to each other over steel wires. The perfecting and extension of the system followed, perhaps as a matter of course, but he was most generous in thus paying tribute to the magnificent developments which have been brought about in three-quarters of a century. The actual invention was, in reality, a tale of two cities, Brantford and Boston. In setting it down, I have striven to be impartial and to describe the results of the Bell experiments in Boston, particularly the all- important discovery of the undulating current. My primary aim, however, has been to demonstrate that Brantford’s share in the great achievement has been overshadowed if not overlooked, and to tell what happened in fuller detail, perhaps, than ever before. In order to forestall criticism, I should explain that I changed the spelling of the Heights from the “Tutela,” which is now used, to the original “Tutelo.” Graham Bell and his father, Alexander Melville Bell, were convinced that “Tutelo” was the correct form of the word and they made efforts to get the fact recognized. I have many to thank for help in completing this rather difficult piece of narration. First, I desire to express my gratitude to Mr. George L. Long, historian of the Bell Telephone Company of Canada, who has been of so much assistance that I rather think he should have been named a co-author; and his associates and his staff in Montreal. Mr. Long supplied me with much original material and photographs and he corrected the errors into which my lack of technical knowledge led me. Of the greatest importance also has been the help of Miss Marjorie Jordan, who comes from Brantford, and who did what might be termed the “field work” for me, interviewing people who had information to give about the Great Event and supplying me with reams of the most valuable notes. Also, I benefited from the ever ready co-operation of Mr. Cyril Sanders of the Brantford Expositor. I desire to extend my thanks to a rather considerable list of people, mostly from Brantford, who contributed useful side lights. Among them are Mr. George Nelson, Toronto, vice-president of Doubleday in Canada, Mr. Harold Hill and Miss Shields and Miss Goode of the Brant County Historical Society, Mr. William H. Brooks and Mr. George M. Ballachey, who are, I believe, the sole surviving witnesses, Miss Margaret Smyth and Mr. George Cooke of Mount Pleasant, Miss Gladys Steuart-Jones of Paris and the editors of the Paris Star, Mrs. W. H. Waldie, Dr. James H. Moyle, Mrs. R. V. Wolfindin, Mr. Frank Calbeck, Mrs. Harry Hewitt, Mr. G. E. F. Sweet, Mr. J. A. D. Slemin, Mrs. R. L. Houlding, and Miss Joyce King of the Brantford Library. I found Catherine Mackenzie’s biography of Alexander Graham Bell most helpful. Finally, I desire to say that it was my wife who suggested the book. She pointed out to me that someone ought to do it and that, as I was born and raised in Brantford, I should perhaps assume the task myself. She gave me, moreover, the encouragement I needed when my energy flagged and when I complained, as I often did, of the difficulties I was encountering. C O N T E N T S 1. The Bell Family Comes to Brantford 11 2. The Three Alexanders 21 3. Sunrise in the World of Science 51 4. The Family Tragedy 65 5. The City 73 6. Family Life at Tutelo Heights 89 7. A Tale of Two Cities 111 8. The Key Is Found 135 9. The Second Great Step 141 10. A Voice Speaks in an Emperor’s Ear 153 11. The Famous Neighbor 163 12. The First Great Test 177 13. The Second Great Test 191 14. A Word about the Man 207 15. The Third Great Test 217 16. The Summing Up 235 T H E C H O R D O F S T E E L Chapter One The Bell Family Comes to Brantford 1 pencil almost slipped into the error of saying it was on a lazy Mafternoon in August 1870 that a light phaeton, which, if it were still in existence, would be preserved with zealous care in a museum, drove down one of the main streets in Brantford, a small city in the province of Ontario, Canada. It could not have been a lazy afternoon. There was no indolence of pace about the city and the air was always as brisk as the habits of the people. I was always wakened by the whistles and bells stridently summoning men to work. First there would be the arrogant clangor from the Massey- Harris, Waterous, Cockshutt, and Verity plants, the distinctive “buzz” which called carpenters to their labors at Schultz Brothers vying with the ringing of the iron bell at Buck’s Foundry, and finally, because it came from a distance, what seemed a laggard call from Slingsby’s. In later years, as a reporter in my home town, I found it necessary to hustle about my work and it seemed to me then that everyone else was moving with equal energy and purpose. No, there has never been anything lazy about Brantford; and so I am inclined to think that the horse drawing this particular conveyance down Brant Avenue came along at a good rate of speed, making its hoofs sound a fine round clip-clop on the hard dirt surface of the road. Seated in the phaeton were two ladies and two men. One of the ladies was of middle age and had an air of refinement and a quiet charm which might have seemed familiar to readers of Jane Austen novels. The other was young and dressed with a hint of recent bereavement. The older of the two men had a beard which showed some traces of gray in its almost patriarchal length. The younger, who seemed in his quite early twenties, also had a beard: black, and carefully trimmed, and with the sparseness and gloss of youth. The elder wore a tall hat of gray beaver, the younger man a tweed cap. Among the stories still told in Brantford about the coming of the Bell family, one concerns two citizens who happened to be standing together at the corner of Brant Avenue and Church Street when the dusty phaeton drove by. “There they are,” said one of them, who could be identified as a doctor by the tip of a stethoscope protruding from his vest pocket. “Did you see the item about them in the Expositor?” The second man, who was in the real estate business, nodded briskly.