The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-04-03
| DISCOVERY OF LONG AGO.
The Secret of Talking by Telephone Dis
covered by DR.. Cushman in 1851.
Afidavits Showing that the System Was in
Use in the Backwoods of Wisconsin
Over Thirty Five Years Ago.

Quite number Of gentlemen called on DR..
Cushman, inventor of the Cushman telephone, at
the Bates House yesterday. II want to make
little prediction said the Doctor. The govern
ment having come to the protection of the peo-
pie to prosecute the suit against the Bell Tele-
phone Company, Bell will not have any monopo-
~ six months from now. He certainly will not
II my evidence Of priority is accepted, which it
certainly will be. You follow Bell up and you
will ind that he has been buying up everybody
out of his way"
What is there in the Rogers Pan-electric
Saint
Nothing in his telephone or receiver There
Is in his transmitter, but transmitter is
{ more telephone than a cutter is buggy One
thing you will have to get out of your heads-the
idea Of any patent. It will not be any great
while before there will not be any telephone
patent at all"
Are you one of the parties in the suit brought
against the Bellp'
Eyes am named in that bill We wrote to
Hon. Allen G. Thurman that it seemed to us
that If myself and those who would sustain my
Cath should first of all be sworn, that our evil
dence would save the necessity of any one claim
Ing to have invented the telephone since 1851.
IL we invented the telephone in 1851,
as we claim and can prove, we certainly have
priority We have no patent. Our evidence
- show without the shadow of doubt that
used the telephone In my business for several
months in 1851 and the year following The
matter of asking for a patent will depend upon
the termination of the suit against Bell"
"Will not the fact that Bell has patent cut
you outlp
There is no law compelling anyone to ask for
patent but the American patent law rests
upon the great truth that he who asks for
patent must and shall be the first and original
discoverer and inventor and he must reduce his
invention to practical use. made my discov-
cry of the telephone in 1851, sixteen miles west
OF Racine, Wis. 1 was engaged in making a tele-
graph line from Racine to Beloit, Wis. under
took to make lightning arrester Ezra Cor
! nell and Mr. Speed asked me to get up a light
1zfzng arrester and the one | then got up is the
father OF all lightning arresIers While we were
err with boxes in swamp and the other we
q had put up whore we had carried the line along,
sixteen miles further on. That day CHANGED
TO pat my ear to the box and heard the frogs in
that swamp, family, but sufficiently clear to
Tecognizs their croaking. Others heard the
same thing Then we began experimenting
over that sixteen miles Of wire A Mr. White
and myself communicated by tapping on the
q
swering the other in the same way. Next
whistle was tried, and the listener at the dia-
phragm got that took the thing apart. When
we went on with the line l got Mr.. White to
lam Pitt Cnshman, and B. F. Blodgest, both of
Akron, o., were interested in my experiments
-Four boxes were made, two for each end of the
line, one to talk in and one to listen at We
grounded wire, and talked to each other back
and forth two or three miles apart all one fore
noon. We got other men at work with us
20 talk and listen at the boxes. There
were six. men working near by, all of
whom tssted the speaking boxes. Two
Of thoss men are alive and have their afidavits.
eelephoned to them the words, as remember,
STAY where you are and We will bring your din
ner 20 YOU And the answer came back, "Al
right, Cushman. 0. K. We get what you say"
Id 1852 and 1853 these boxes were put up by
White and other men just for fun, and we have
SIX or seven witnesses who swear to having seen
and talked through them. Probably two hun
dred other persons have heard these men talk
about these facts In 1854 my partner in the
line building moved to Mt Pleasant, as it was
then called fixed loop so that we could talk
together, being at Racine and he six miles
away, telephonically. We were all the time try
ing to make it work louder. You understand,
the Bell patent rests upon the telephone that he
made in 1875 and made in 1851, and not upon
s. the transmitter, which neither of us made Mr.
Blodgett is dead / have the affidavit of his
: widow, now living in South Carolina, and she
testhes that we used the instrument crude
akhough it was, from place to place and family to
family.
TN 1854 I made a rope walk at Racine for
making wire rope for lightning rods ushmans
cable lightning-rods You have them here in
this town. The walk was between five and six
hundred feet long, and we used telephone boxes
for the men to converse through while at work.
Here are affidavits from men to that fact. ALI
the wire rope made, by the way, is made by the
Cushman machine. The patent is run OUT My
brother improved the machine. This brother,
carfnN al-nh <tn%
world talk better. louder, and clearer-and he
did Those he made were used all that summer
He ook the same magnets had used in the
otbs boxes. We contended that it was the dia-
crooked, full of holes, and in all sorts of ways
never dreaming of making q short circuit
Il invented ths hre-alarm telegraph, and in
1866, 1867 and 1868 lectured to the fire depart
ments over the country. In my fre-telegraph
pamphlets You win see claim talking circuit
In combination with the fre-alarm. But the
difficulty was to make them talk loud enough
/ sold my realarm patent, and Gameweil
bought it OF the parties to whom l sold it. /
haze got all my pay yet. You have heard of
George b. Hicks, the inventor of the first tele-
graph repeater. He was boy at Akron. o.,
whore taught him telegraphy. He sold that
invention to the Western Union for 800 600 in
stock, probably worth $780, 600 afterwards, when
the stock was watered. Hicks tried to improve
ny telephone, but did not succeed in carrying it
!, on any further than had it or than Mr. Bell
had IL in 1876. Bell and Cushman stood alike as
20 volume Of voice and efhciency-nothing in
= favor Of the Bell except appearance.
ssThe American Bell Telephone Company sent
kheir attorney to see me- The consequence was
went to Boston and stayed there four or Ave
y weeks at their expense. I made a contract
with them, May III, 1882. for three years. That
contract was out last May. Since that time
have bsen gathering evidence of which have
told You, and since that time the American
Gushman Company has been organized on the
evidence have accumulated.
"If the ordinance introduced in your CITY
Council Is passed MIR. Boey and the gentlemen
who are with him-l, too, am interested in the
eompany-propose to at once put up poles and
= wires, and put in 500 instruments within ninety
days. Ours will be service company, and any