The Tangled Web of Patent #174465

By Russell A. Pizer

The Tangled Web Of Patent #174,465 is the story of fraud, collusion, perjury, corruption, bribery and what would now be called industrial espionage.

It is a story that involves an individual who has been called one of America's inventive geniuses – Alexander Graham Bell. He has been held in the highest regard as the inventor of the telephone. However, careful scrutiny of numerous documents that include thousands of pages of sworn testimony before a Congressional investigations committee, show that Alexander Graham Bell was a party to what might be considered one of the most intriguing historical deceptions.

With all due respect to Alexander Graham Bell, he was not the actual perpetrator of this historic fraud. The culprit in the initial historical subterfuge was Bell's father-in-law: Gardiner Greene Hubbard.

The Tangled Web. . . will show how Alexander Graham Bell has been falsely given high honors in the history books of the United States depriving the true inventor of the telephone his rightful place.

It will be seen that throughout the early years of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell gave different stories about events that surrounded the invention and issuance of a patent of what became – only via legal wranglings – the invention of the telephone. These different stories cast grave doubts about Alexander Graham Bell’s honesty and that of his father-in-law who reaped millions of dollars in profits through what became a telephone monopoly.

This story clearly represents examples of two adages. "Oh what a tangled web we weave when at first we practice to deceive" and "Truth is stranger than fiction."

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 3, 2009
• ISBN: 9781438984049

Russell A. Pizer

Russell A. Pizer holds two degrees in music from the University of Michigan and completed some advanced studies toward a doctor of musical arts. For his first career, Mr. Pizer taught instrumental music and conducted concert and marching bands at the high school and college/university levels. His early career began with Proctor High School in Utica, New York, then went on to such institutions as Wisconsin State University and Sacramento City College. During this career, he had four books, 26 articles and one technical manual published on teaching instrumental music. Mr. Pizer’s second career began in the directory assistance department of New York Telephone handling traffic for New York City. He later transferred to the Residential Customer Service Center on Long Island. During these years – outside of work – he did research into early telephony. Beginning in 1993, Mr. Pizer gave a series of lectures for The Association for Research in Telecommunications History during their annual meetings in Denver; Boston; Dallas; Wilmington and Kingston, Ontario, Canada. He was subsequently elected president of that association. After retiring from what had become NYNEX, he and his wife moved to Florida. Besides becoming a member of the local golf club, he became the president of the local Association of Freethinkers and Humanists and vice president of the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. The recent lecture topics he has presented include: “Complementary & Alternative Medical Modalities;” “The Historical Foundations of Our Constitutional Democracy;” “The Bible, The Founding Fathers & An American Theocracy;” “Censorship is Alive and Well.” He also presented a series of seminars for the Palm Coast Great Weight Loss Challenge titled, “Keys to Developing a Healthy Lifestyle.”

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© 2009 Russell A. Pizer. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 11/02/2022

ISBN: 978-1-4389-8402-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4389-8403-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4389-8404-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009906174

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 - The Patent, Caveat & Pre-existing Telephones

A Patent, A Caveat, The Bell Patent Number, Charles Wheatstone, Abbé Laborde, Sylvanas D. Cushman, M. Petina of Prague, Dr. Clemens, Antonio Meucci, Charles Bourseul, Meucci on Staten Island, New York, Where was Meucci’s copy, Phillip Reis, Hermann Helmholtz, Meucci’s letter,

Chapter 2 - The Controversy Begins

Scientific American, Alfred G. Holcomb, George W. Beardslee, Innocenzo Manzetti, Philip H. Van der Weyde, Philipp Reis, Elisha Gray, Edward C. Pickering, Gray and Van der Weyde, Meucci’s telettrofono, Edward B. Grant, Henry W. and Frank L. Pope, Daniel Drawbaugh, Amos E. Dolbear

Chapter 3 - Bell, Sanders & Hubbard

Thomas Sanders, Gardiner G. Hubbard, Graham’s interest in electrical devices, Hubbard’s interest in Graham’s experiments, Centennial Promotion,

Chapter 4 - Elisha Gray vs Graham Bell

Elisha Gray’s rheotome, Elisha Gray & Western Union, Time-of-day, Traditional story, Goode’s testimony, Schuyler Duryee, H. C. Townsed statement, Graham did not use word telephone, Western Union Settlement, Langdon’s version of Western Union Settlement, Langdon on Western Union Case, Goulden’s version of the Western Union Case, The Bell Company and the Blake transmitter, Increase in stock value, Seth Beckwith, Elisha Gray’s statement to Pan-Electric Committee

Chapter 5 - Western Union & Meucci

Myths of Telephone History, Eco d’Italia in connection with Bendelari’s trip to Europe, Several Telephone Companies formed, The record shows, The Congressional committee, The Electrical World

Chapter 6 - The Pan-Electric Telephone Controversy

Pan-Electric Telephone Co., J. Harris Rogers, Dr. J. W. Rogers, General Joseph E. Johnston, Theodore N. Vail, Bell Telephone Co. vs Rogers Telephone Co., National Improved Telephone Co., Young-Van Benthuysen agreement, Western Union under Jay Gould, U.S. Government suit against Bell Co., Solicitor General John Goode, Hearing at Columbus, Cost of litigation, Validity of Bell patent, Wilber’s affidavit, Partisan newspapers, Bell Co. bribed newspapers, Pan-Electric Committee instituted, Pan-Electric conclusions, Pan-Electric minority report

Chapter 7 - A. G. Bell, Hubbard and The Pan-Electric Committee

Gardiner Hubbard’s credibility, Hubbard’s testimony, What the historical record shows

Chapter 8 - Zenas Fisk Wilber

How Gray Was Cheated, Major [Marcellus] Bailey, Wilber arrested, Wilber’s drawing of the U. S. Patent Office, Wilber & Edison, Garland & Wilber, Graham’s denial, Graham contradicts himself, Bruce’s evidence against Graham, Wilber’s affidavit,

Chapter 9 - More Pan-Electric Testimony & The Jenks Suit

Eaton’s Statement, Eaton on Meucci, Zenas F. Wilber on Meucci, Assistant Solicitor General Jenks, Acting Attorney-General Goode, Secretary Lamar’s Letter, U.S. vs. American Bell Telephone Co.

Chapter 10 - Politics, Corruption & Other Dubious Activities

Conflict of interests, Pan-Electric Committee closes hearings, The Bell-Pinkerton connection, Hubbard’s monopoly, A monopolists’ modus operandi, California Gold, A case of bribery that backfired, Pinkerton’s dubious history, Pinkerton and Meucci,

Chapter 11 - Coda - What happened, when

Judge Wallace’s concept of how, What history should report

Appendix A - Elisha Gray’s Statement to The Pan-Electric Committee

Appendix B - The Untold Story of the Telephone – Gray’s statement

 Appendix C - Biography of Antonio Meucci

Appendix D - Biography of Gardiner Greene Hubbard

Appendix E - Graham Bell’s testimony before Congressional Committee

Appendix F - Lamar’s letter to John Goode

Appendix G - Pinkerton Operative’s Report on Antonio Meucci

Appendix H - The Kellogg Affair

Appendix I - Chronology

LIST OF FIGURES

Fig       Description

2-1 Meucci’s electrical tongue depressor - 1849

2-2 Meucci’s apartment - 1849

2-3 Meucci’s telephone devices - 1852 to 1856

2-4 a ferry-boat Westfield disaster - 1871

2-4 b ferry-boat Westfield disaster - 1871

2-5 Sketched from the hurricane-deck of the Northfield -1871

2-6 Philipp Reis’ telephone - 1861

2-7 Helmholtz’ tuning-fork sounder - 1862

3-1 Holcomb telephonic instrument - 1860-1861

3-2/3 Beardslee’s internal construction and outside cover

3-4 Van der Weyde’s telephonic device - 1869

3-5 Van der Weyde’s receiver - 1869

3-6 Van der Weyde’s device - 1870

3-7 Nestore Corradi’s drawing of Meucci’s home telephone line - 1871

3-8 Drawbaugh’s teacup transmitter - 1866

3-9 Drawbaugh’s jelly glass transmitter - 1867

3-10 Drawbaugh’s horseshoe magnet

5-1/2 Oval disc or spatula of copper cooled and supported in an insulated handle of cork. Funnel of pasteboard - 1849

5-3/4 Tin tube covered with wire with ends solderedto the tongue of copper - 1851

5-5 Wooden tube and pasteboard mouthpiece - 1851-1854

5-6 Horseshoe magnet and animal

membrane - 1856

5-7 Core of tempered steel magnetized and surrounded with a coil of an iron diaphragm - 1858-1860

5-8 Ring of iron wound spinally with copper wire

5-9 A large bobbin in a soap-box of box-wood

5-10 Bent horseshoe form - 1865

5-11 Antonio Meucci - 1887

6-1 It has Nothing to do with the case - Thomas Nast- 1886

6-2 Put that Garland where it will do the most good - Thomas Nast cartoon

8-1 Wilber’s drawing of the U. S. Patent Office - 1886

9-1 Meucci telephone of - 1853 - and Bell telephone of 1877

11-1 Drawing that accompanied Gray’s caveat - 1876

11-2 Drawing that became part of Graham’s patent - 1876

11-3 Graham’s first successful transmitter & Gray’s caveat transmitte

11-5 Judge Wallace’s concept of how Meucci’s telephone worked – they were acoustical - 1887

11-6 Graphic drawing of Meucci’s telephone - 1857

11-7 Cutaway view of Meucci’s telephone - 1867

11-8 Drawing of how Meucci communicated with his invalid wife - 1851

FORWARD

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The Tangled Web Of Patent #174,465 is the story of fraud, collusion, perjury, corruption, bribery and what would now be called industrial espionage.

It is a story that involves an individual who has been called one of America’s inventive geniuses – Alexander Graham Bell. He has been held in the highest regard as the inventor of the telephone. However, careful scrutiny of numerous documents that include thousands of pages of sworn testimony before a Congressional investigations committee, show that Alexander Graham Bell was a party to what might be considered one of the most intriguing historical deceptions.

With all due respect to Alexander Graham Bell, he was not the actual perpetrator of this historic fraud. The culprit in the initial historical subterfuge was Bell’s father-in-law: Gardiner Greene Hubbard.

The Tangled Web. . . will show how Alexander Graham Bell has been falsely given high honors in the history books of the United States depriving the true inventor of the telephone his rightful place.

It will be seen that throughout the early years of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell gave different stories about events that surrounded the invention and issuance of a patent of what became – only via legal wranglings – the invention of the telephone. These different stories cast grave doubts about Alexander Graham Bell’s honesty and that of his father-in-law who reaped millions of dollars in profits through what became a telephone monopoly.

It has been said that the patent for the telephone is the most valuable patent ever granted. In the year 1996, that patent which led to the establishment of the Bell telephone companies resulted in profits (for that one year) of $34,000,000.

- - - - -

NOTE: Throughout this book, Alexander Graham Bell will be referred to as A. G. Bell or simply Graham. This will differentiate Alexander Graham Bell – the person – from Bell the Company. Occasionally A. G. Bell was called Alec. For most of his life however, A. G. Bell signed his name A. Graham Bell to draw a distinction between himself and his father who was Alexander M. Bell. (Alexander Melville Bell).

<<<<<>>>>>

Introduction

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The pivotal point in the story of the invention of the telephone is February 14, 1876.

On that day, an application was filed for a patent that became the most valuable patent in the history of mankind. On March 3, 1876, that patent, issued to Alexander Graham Bell, became patent number 174,465.

Most historical accounts state that on the day in question, February 14, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell filed a patent application for an ‘Improvement in Telegraphy.’ It was that patent (No. 174,465) that became known as a patent for the invention of the telephone. However, as will be seen, that patent application did not include any mention of a telephone. Also, as will be seen, a patent for a telephone should not have been granted to Alexander Graham Bell or anyone else for that matter.

Most historical accounts state some time later in the day, February 14, 1876, Elisha Gray filed a caveat for a speaking telephone.

Unlike Alexander Graham Bell, Elisha Gray was one of America’s most successful inventors of electrical devices of this era. However, some writers believe Gray died with a great deal of bitterness at being robbed of his place in history as the inventor of the telephone. As proof of this bitterness, historians relate the contents of a scrap of paper found in the attic of Gray’s residence in Highland Park, Illinois, after his death in January of 1901. That scrap of paper reads: The history of the telephone will never be fully written. It is partly hidden away in 20 or 30 thousand pages of testimony and partly lying on the hearts and consciences of a few whose lips are sealed, some sealed in death and others by a golden clasp whose grip is even tighter.

The pages that follow will unravel the final story in this long-standing controversy. It will establish, via extensive research, an amazing story that proves truth is stranger than fiction.

That research, drawn from thousands of pages of documents will show, that to date, the record most people call American History is not accurate when it comes to the question, Who invented the telephone.

The research contained on the following pages puts together many of what appears to be, unrelated documents that lead to the truth behind one of America’s cherished myths.

This research, in the final analysis, does lead the truth seekers to who was the first person to invent a telephone or at the least, the first person in the United States, working independently, to develop a device that would allow a person’s voice to be carried over long distances by an electrified wire and who had secured a legal document supporting that fact.

Additionally, it also tells about an inventor in Europe that developed a similar device before Alexander Graham Bell but died before any practical use was ever made of his invention. However, the European’s telephone would have needed some major technical improvements before it would have been useable by the general populace.

<<<<<>>>>>

Acknowledgments

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In 1992, I was invited to present a paper for review and possible acceptance for presentation at the International Symposium on Telecommunications History that was to be held in Dallas, Texas, in June of 1993. That invitation came by way of Willard Bill Elsasser who knew of my interest in telephone history in general and telephone switchboards in particular. Bill Elsesser had retired from New York Telephone having worked in the building where I was employed at that time.

The symposia in telecommunications history had been founded by George Howard, Charles Pleasance and Thomas Hutchinson as an outgrowth of an historical committee of Telephone Collectors International, Inc.

My paper was accepted and presented at the Dallas Symposium. The title was, The Genesis of Telephone Switchboards.

While doing research into the history of telephone switchboards – as a result of the invitation to speak at the symposium – I found some curious inaccuracies in the history of telephony. They were only minor inaccuracies but they were, in fact, errors. Encouraged by my first symposium presentation, I proposed a topic for another symposium. That topic centered around the first telephone operators that were not, as many accounts seem to indicate, females. They were teenaged boys.

About the same time, I acquired three books that pointed me toward more research. One was written by Cynthia Crossen titled Tainted Truth – The Manipulation of Fact in America. It was published by Touchstone Books in 1994. Another was written by Richard Shenkman and published by Harper & Rowe. The title of Shenkman’s book is, Legends, Lies & Cherished Myths of American History. The third was extremely disconcerting. It destroyed many of my known facts about history: Past Imperfect -- History According to the Movies edited by Mark C. Cranes and published by Henry Holt & Co. in 1995. These helped me to understand that I was not the only person to find inaccuracies in what appears to be sacred historical fact – in some cases, what appears to be irrefutable truths that we learn very early in life – as early as elementary school.

My presentation about the first telephone operators – who were teenaged boys – was given during the 1994 International Symposium on Telecommunications History. It was held at Pine Manor College at Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. During that time, I became acquainted with Dr. Rosario Tosiello who was the host for that Symposium. It was at that time I learned about his doctoral dissertation that contains the most complete and thoroughly researched history of the early years of what was to become AT&T (American Telephone & Telegraph) and the Bell System. I became fascinated by Dr. Tosiello’s Ph. D. dissertation which was done at Boston University. Dr. Tosiello’s advisor at Boston University was Robert V. Bruce the noted author of the authoritative book, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude. Dr. Tosiello’s Ph.D. dissertation is titled: The Birth and Early Years of the Bell Telephone System, 1876-1889.

This symposium presentation led to my third symposium topic in June of 1995: Some Tainted Truths in Telephone History. I patterned this symposium title after that of Cynthia Crossen’s book.

Subsequently, I became involved in the association that sponsored the symposia and was greatly encouraged by a group of persons who were intensely interested in the history of telephony.

In 1994, I was appointed chairman of the fourth symposium and in December of 1997, became the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the sponsoring organization – ARTH (The Association for Research in Telephone History.)

My association with George Howard and Charles Pleasance (two of the board members of ARTH), led me to a new and informed understanding regarding the whole history of telephony.

Through a close association with George Howard and Charles Pleasance, they provided me with untold pages of information I might not have attained otherwise. I must also acknowledge the staff of the North Babylon (New York) Public Library who were more than willing to help me secure information through their Interlibrary Loan Program as well as the staff at the Flagler County Library in Palm Coast, Florida. (Upon my retirement from New York Telephone in December of 1998, I moved to Palm Coast, Florida.) A great deal of acknowledgment must also go to Rosario Tosiello and his meticulously documented doctoral dissertation from which much information contained herein is quoted.

My research into the question of the Bell telephone patent began in earnest after my older brother (William J. Pizer Sr.) referred me to an article in the August 1994 issue of the OSIA Newsletter (Order Sons of Italy in America). That article mentioned the Garibaldi-Meucci Museum and the relationship of Antonio Meucci to the invention of the telephone. Being as that museum was only an hour’s drive from my home that was, at the time, on Long Island, New York, I paid it a visit, then another and another. With the help of its curator, Carol Quinby, I found reams of information that would be unknown to anyone outside of what is a small, select circle of telephone historians in the United States. Along with Carol Quinby, I was led to thousands of pages of information from the Garibaldi-Meucci Museum archives by Tony DeNonno.

In early 1996, the credibility of claims that run contrary to the popular history of the invention of the telephone was given a tremendous boost by a demonstration sponsored by Tony DeNonno. I witnessed a demonstration of a reproduction of a telephone built in 1867. That reproduction had been built by Thomas Quaderer. The body of this reproduction however, was constructed out of plastic whereas the original was made out of brass and box wood. The mechanics and electrical properties were identical to the original.

With this backdrop, I prepared a presentation for the Fourth International Symposium which was held in Denver, Colorado in June of 1996. That presentation had as its title that which is used by this book, The Tangled Web of Patent #174465.

There remained one more hurtle to the publication of this text. There was a need to get clear and uncontestable copyright permission for some of the references used. Because the research took years and years of review of all manner of resources, some obscure historical documents, their origins were difficult to identify. With the assistance of a grant from The National Italian American Foundation, the services of an Intellectual Property Rights attorney was made possible as well as the costs for the publication.

Russell A. Pizer

<<<<<>>>>>

Chapter 1

Elisha Gray vs Graham Bell

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Elisha Gray’s rheotome

"In late January or early February of 1874, Elisha Gray heard the refrain of the rheotome issuing from his bathroom where he found his young nephew ‘taking shocks’ to amuse the smaller children. With a vibrating rheotome in the circuit of a primary induction coil, the boy connected one end of the secondary coil to the zinc lining of the bathtub and held the other end in his hand. When the boy’s free hand glided along the bathtub lining, it produced a whining sound in tune with the rheotome. Gray tried the effect and found that quick, hard rubbing made the noise even louder than that of the rheotome itself. When he varied the pitch of the rheotome, the noise followed suit.

[A rheotome is an electronic device for interrupting an electric current. This device was used by persons who carried on extensive experimentation with electrical currents of even the smallest voltage.]

"Over the next few weeks, Gray made receiving instruments on that principle, such as a hand-crank wheel against which the fingers or some equivalent ‘animal tissue’ could be held. Then he set to work in greater earnest with an assistant. By late spring he was using a completely different type of receiver, a metal diaphragm vibrated by an electromagnet, exactly like Edward Pickering’s tin-box receiver of several years before. In May of 1874 he made a transmitter with eight keys of different pitches, so that a similar tune could be sounded on either the ‘animal tissue’ or diaphragm receivers.

"The great difference between Gray’s instruments and [Graham Bell’s] in mid-1874 was that Gray’s receivers would respond to any frequency, whereas [Graham’s] was painstakingly constructed to respond selectively. Gray’s receivers thus faced away from multiple telegraph and toward the telephone. But his transmitters did not. They generated sounds; they did not pick them up from the air.

Elisha Gray & Western Union

Gray showed his gadgets to Western Union Telegraph Company officials in May 1874 and to Joseph Henry and other scientists at the Smithsonian Institution in June.¹

On July 10, 1874, the New York Times contained an article about Elisha Gray’s music by telegraph, describing the keyboard arrangement but not the principle. With this device, which Gray called a telephone, the Times reported, anyone at the receiving end can distinctly hear, without the aid of electro-magnetism, the tune or air which is being played 500 or 1000 miles away... A Western Union official forecast that in time the operators will transmit the sound of their own voice over the wires.²

In an issue of the Hartford Courant that reported on the closing session of the August meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, scientists could read: A curious and striking invention, called a ‘telephone,’ the effect of which is to telegraph musical sound, and even tunes, through any length of wire, has been made, it is said, by Mr. Elisha Gray, of Chicago. . . . Mr. Gray hopes one day to be able to transmit the sound of the human voice also by telegraph. . .³

A. G. Bell as well as Elisha Gray used the Western Union laboratory in New York for some experiments on their harmonic telegraph. Graham admitted that during this period (March, April and May of 1875), he had the technical assistance of both Frank Pope and George Prescott, but it is not known exactly what kind of assistance they gave him. What is known is that at the same time that [Graham] and Gray were carrying on their research, [William] Orton [President of Western Union] had a translation made from a German magazine dealing with Phillip Reis’ telephone which he gave to Thomas A. Edison to study carefully. Edison then began a series of experiments with the view of producing an articulating telephone.⁴

"Pope proclaimed Gray as the inventor of the telephone in a paper which was read before the American Electrical Society of Chicago on December 12, 1877. That paper was reprinted in the 1878 edition of Prescott’s book on the telephone. At that time, both Prescott and Gray were members of the Board of Directors of the American Speaking Telephone Company, the company set up by Western Union. After the 1879 agreement between Western Union and the Bell Company, Prescott changed his story and gave [Graham] full credit for inventing the telephone in the 1890 edition of his book, The Electric Telephone, and in the 1892 edition of his book, Electricity And The Electric Telegraph.⁵

Some writers on the subject of the invention of the telephone make the claim that Graham Bell’s invention of the telephone dates from June 2, 1875. However, on that date, Graham and Thomas Watson only succeeded in recognizing that audible sounds could be generated magnetically.⁶

The device Graham and Watson used on June 2nd was two steel reed electronic harps. Each harp had a row of steel reeds having different pitches. Graham tried to tune pairs of reeds so that when one was vibrated on one harp the like-tuned reed on a distant harp (connected by an electrical wire) would vibrate with the same speed of vibration.

During a speech given by Graham Bell before the Telephone Pioneers Association on November 2, 1911, he had this to say about the application for the patent that became that for the telephone.

In September, 1875, I was at work upon the specifications of the new celebrated patent. In October, 1875, the patent was completed. But it was not filed in October. A long delay ensued, because I was so imbued with the idea of the value of this great invention that I was not satisfied to take out patents for America alone – I must take them out for every country on earth. But that, you know, required money, and I did not have the money. Mr. [Thomas] Sanders and Mr. [Gardiner Greene] Hubbard, who were associated with me and carried on my experiments and of the American patent. They were too wise to touch foreign patents. So I had to go ahead and see what I could do to get this great patent taken up abroad, and that caused great delay. I went up to Canada to interview friends in Canada, and at last made an agreement with the Honorable George Brown, who was at one time Premier of Canada, that he and his brother, Gordon Brown, would take out patents in England and perhaps other countries, on condition – that I would not file my application for an American patent until I had word from them that it would not interfere with the applications abroad. And so it was that the American patent dragged on for months, until at last Mr. Hubbard just said a quiet word to my solicitors in Boston, ‘It is no use waiting longer for Mr. Brown, just you put in the patent.’ And the patent was filed without my knowledge or consent...⁷

"On January 25, 1876, George Brown met with [Graham] and Hubbard with the specifications for a European patent and said he would go over them in England with the eminent scientist Sir William Thomson. Brown sailed for England the next day (January 26) having sealed the bargain with the first payment of fifty dollars. At the end of February, George’s brother notified Graham that the whole deal was off. Graham’s invention could not be made to pay in England.⁸

The exact events that occurred on February 14, 1876 and shortly thereafter will never be known for certain. Robert V. Bruce, in his well recognized biography of A. G. Bell, gives this scenario of what he thinks happened. This however, might be considered a biased view in favor of the Bell Telephone Company.

"The events of February 14 involved the doings of Elisha Gray. Since mid-January, Gray had been in Washington preparing and filing ‘a number of cases relating to telephony [that is, tone transmission] that had been accumulating through a number of months’ (as he testified later). Gardiner Hubbard surely knew about Gray’s presence and activities in general. He may well have suspected further that Gray had clues to what [Graham] was now about to patent. After all, Joseph Adams a year earlier had threatened in scarcely veiled terms to sell Gray his inside knowledge of [Graham’s] work; others, for all Hubbard knew, might actually have done so. Since then, [Graham] had told several Boston scientists precisely what he had in mind; and Gray had contacts in the scientific community. In September the Toronto Globe had reported [Graham’s] progress toward electrical transmission of speech. Someone who knew of Gray’s related interests might well have mentioned the item or sent him a clipping. Whatever the immediate reasons, Gardiner Hubbard gave up on George Brown..."⁹

Thus, on Monday, February 14, 1876, an attorney representing Gardiner Hubbard entered the U.S. Patent office in Washington, D. C. and filed an application for Graham Bell’s Improvements in Telegraphy. The attorney – Anthony Pollok – was from the firm of Bailey & Pollok. (As Graham related above, he was unaware this action was being taken by Hubbard.)

The application and fee for [Graham’s] invention was duly recorded by the clerk but the time-of-day of the entry was not noted. It was on that same day – a stormy one, it is said to have been – that Elisha Gray filed, not an application for a telephone patent, but a caveat.

Time-of-day

Had the patent clerk entered on his records the hour when each of these applications had been filed, years of litigation would have been averted. As a result of the legal battles that ensued, it is believed by some that Gray was first with his application. It was charged under oath that being filed first, Gray’s application lay near the bottom of the day’s papers, and therefore, at the close of the day’s business, was entered among the last on the records – [Graham’s] entry appeared to be the fifth and Gray’s the thirty-ninth. This theory was repudiated by the Patent Office officials. The argument was gradually built up that Gray had arrived at the office two hours later than [the Hubbard/Graham] attorney. Thirty-four applications for patents and caveats must have made it an unusually busy two hours for that office.

The chief examiner for the patent office was Zenas Fisk Wilber. Wilber was the cousin and ward of Rutherford B. Hayes. (Hayes was to be elected President in the fall of 1876.) At the time, American patent laws were so structured as to invite perjury, bribery, misdating, and other trickery. Wilber was an alcoholic, chronically in need of money. He was deeply in debt to Major Bailey of the firm of Pollok and Bailey. (More will be said about this later.)

There were other problems besides the time-of-day which will be