The St. Johns herald., 1895-09-12
THE TELEPHONE IDEA
First Suggested in This Country
 by the Croaking Of Frogs.
Something About D-. Cl3.i-aan, the Con- strzIctor of the First Trans hitter, and the Manner Of EZ.s
 Dicccre-y.

It IS not common LBoTleGge. except to those familiar with electrical and telephone history, that the first tele- phone was constructed in Racine, Wis. and that the inventor. Dr. S. D. Cush- man. is now 8 resident Of Chicago, says the News, Of th2t city.
 His litigation with the Bell Telephone company, extending over a period Of ten years and costing one hundred thou sand dollars, has been reported from legal standpoint, bat as 1t is one Of Mr. Cushnan's principles that personal "reminiscences are in bad taste, he has seldom given formal interview. The venerable inventor, seventy-seven years of age, who built the first telegraph lines in this part of the ''far west" pursres his business with more alert ness to affairs than the average young man.
 In a corner of the room is large, worn piece Of muslin oa which is Paint- ed in thin colors a representation of a telegraph line stretching away in the distance, connected with a crude instrument. set on two logs, near which is frog sitting by stream. This old relic represents the telegraph line Of good cedar posts, which Dr. CushInal constructed west from Racine for the Erie & Michigan TeIeEraph company in 1851, and the experimental lightning arrester which led to his discovery.
 It is a reminder of the days when Dr. Cushman was associated with Prof. Morse in the pioneer days of tcleg- raphy. On his desk is the first tele- phone transnittcr, constructed in 1851, twenty-five years before the Bell patents were taken out. It is small, square box, with Q speaking orifce and containing mechanism on the same principle as that of the modern trans hitter.
 In 1851 Dr. Cushulan undertook the construction of lightning arrcgter, his object being to take the lightning that struck the wire and run it into the ground, the instrument being SO con- structed that it would not interfere with the light current used in tele- graphing This instrument was placed out on the prairie cn two logs and in order to know when it Lad operated
 
 at the poles, similar in construction to a modern receiver" was placed in the corner of the box. In ease the light ming passed through the instrument the electro-magnet would pull this strip of iron down into the range of q permanent magnet, which would re- tain it until the instrument was in- spectcd.
 A similar device was placed in the basement of the building at Racine and connected with the other end of t3c line. One day while thunderstorm was coming up. and Dr. Cushman was watching tho instrument, the croalIing of frogs was heard, thirteen miles away. This is the explanation of how the old painting with the crude instru- meat and the croaking frog is idcnG- fed with the discovery of the tele- phone.
 Dr. Cushman is t.c inventor of the firc-alarm system il use in Chicago. His ratcnt-o1ice reports, he says, would weigh ton" and contain great number of his electrical patents. To the priority of Dr. Cushma1 there is said to be 70 doubt, a7d the contest of the validity of the Bell patents be- gun in 1855 was at last taken to the United States district court of Boston in 1893, where it is nov pending.
 Dr. Cushman is a descendant of the historical Cushmans who came to Vir- ginia in 16fO. He was friend of IIor- ace Greeley and most of his prominent contemporaries in what might be called the era of rapid mechanical develop ment. In early life he was a newspa- per reporter. Some twenty years of his life was spent in central Ohio, and he says: "I never doubted that God made that country