New Britain herald., 1922-08-02
DR. BELL, INVENTOR
 OF TELEPHONE, DIES
tContinued from First Page).

cept Bell, became during his lifetime q reality commonplace and marvellous.
 The Bell basic patent, known in the records at Washington as No, .174.450, has been called the most valuable single patent ever issued In the whole history of invention, There are today over thirteen million tele- phone instruments through which billions of telephone conversations are carried on each year,
 4 Family Hobby.
 Means of communication had been a hobby in the Bell family long before the inventor of the telephone was born. Two generations back, Alexan- der Bell became noted for inventing a system for overcoming stammering speech, while. his son. Alexander Mel vile Bell, father of the inventor of the telephone, perfected system of visible speech,
 Born in Scotland.
 With this heritage. the son. born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in ls47, un- dertook similar experiments while still a lad. He constructed an arti- hcial skull of gutta- peroha and India rubber that would pronounce several words in weird tones. when blown into by a hand bellows. At the age of 16 he became. like his father, a teacher of elocution, and an instructor Of mutes.
 Bell reached a crisis in his life at the age of 22, when he was threat ened with tuberculosis. The white plague caused the death of his two brothers and the Bell family migrat- ed to Brantford. Canada.
 A meeting at that time with Sir Charles Wheatstone. the English in- ventor of the telegraph fired the young eocutionist with ambition to invent a musical. or multiple. tele- graph, which eventually turned out to be a telephone. VI.
 Offered $500 In Boston.
 His father while giving lecture in Boston, proudly mentioned the sons success in teaching London deaf mutes This led the Boston Board of to offer the younger Bell $500 to introduce his system in the newly opened school for deaf mutes. He was then A years old, and instant ly became the educational sensation of the day. He was appointed profes- scr in Boston University, and opened his instantly successful School of Vocal Physiology"
 But teaching interfered with his in venting. and he soon gave up all but two pupils. One of these was Mabel Hubbard. of wealthy family. She had lost her hearing and speech in an attack of scarlet fever while baby. it was she who after became Bells wife.
 Worked In Cellar.
 Bell spent the following three years In night work in a cellar in Salem, Mass. His money needs were met by Gardiner G. Hubbard, his future fath- er-in-law, and Thomas Sanders, the owner of the cellar. As he worked he began to see the possibility of convey ing speech over an electrically charged wire-the telephone. He used a dead mans ear for transmitter.
 If I can make a deaf mute talk" Bell declared, T can make iron talk"
 His First Success.
 His first success came while testing | his instruments in his new quarters | in Boston Thomas A. Watson, Bells | assistant, had struck a clock spring at 1 one end of the wire, and Bell was | to hear the sound in an- ether room. For forty weeks the in- strument struggled, as 1t were, for hu- man speech. Then on March 10. | 1876, Watson became almost insane with joy when he heard over the wire l Bells voice saving:
 MT. Watson, come here, want l you.'
 Got Patent at 29.
 On his 29th birthday, Bell received | his patent It was at the Centennial | Exposition held at Phila adelphia. two