The Hartford republican. (Hartford, Ky.) 18??-1926, 1922-08-04
DIR. BELL, INVENTOR
OF TELEPHONE, DIES
Death Comes Unexpectedly At His
Nova Scotia Home.

Sydney, N. S. Avg. DIR. Alexan-
der Graham Bell, inventor of the
telephone, died at 2 o'clock this
morning at his estate near Baddeck.
Although the inventor had been in
failing health for several months, he
| had not been confined to his bed, and
the end was unexpected. Late yester-
day. however, his condition became
serious, and DR.. Ker, of Washington,
cousin of Mrs. Bell, house guest
and Sydney physician, attended
him.
With Mr.. Bell when he died we're
Mrs Bell, a daughter. Mrs. Marion
Hubbard Fairchild. and her husband
David G.. Fairchild. of Washington.
The inventor leaves another daugh-
ter, Mrs. Elsie M. Grosvenor, wife of
Washington magazine editor.
DR.. Bell will be buried on top Of
Mount Benin BREACH. a spot chosen
by himself.
Alexander Graham Bell lived to see
experiments, which he began with
dead mans ear less than fifty years
ago, result in a means of commune
cation for millions of long-distance
telephone conversations daily in all
parts Of the world. The possibility
of talking over a wire, ridiculed then
as dream by almost everybody, ex-
cept Bell, became during his lifetime
reality, commonplace and marvel
Gus.
The Bell basic patent, known in the
records at Washington as No TIA, 465
has been called the most valuable
single patent ever issued in the whole
history of invention. There are to-
day over 10, OOO. 900 telephone instru-
ments. through which billions of tele-
phone conversations are carried ON
each year.
Means of communication had been
a hobby in the Bell family long be-
fore the inventor of the telephone
was born. Two generations back,
Alexander Bell became noted for in
venting system for overcoming
stammering speech, while, his son,
Alexander Melville, Bell, father of the
inventor of the telephone, perfected a
system of visible speech.
With this heritage, the son, born in
Edinburg. Scotland, in 1847, under
took similar experiments while still a
lad. He constructed an artificial
skull of gutta-percha and India rub
Der that would pronounce several
words in weird tones, when blown in
to by a hand bellows. At the age of
16 he became, like his father, a
teacher of elocution. and an instruc-
tor of deaf mutes.
Bell spent three years in night
work in cellar in Salem, Mass.
His money needs were met by Gardi-
ner G. Hubbard. his future father-in-
law, and Thomas Sanders, the owner
of the cellar. AS he worked he be-
gan to see the possibility of convey
ing speech over an electrically charg-
ed wire-the telephone. He used a
dead mans ear for a transmitter.
"If can make deaf-mute talk"
Bell had declared, 81 can make iron
talk.
His first success came while test
ing his instruments in his new quar-
tiers in Boston. Thomas A. Watson,
Bells assistant, had struck clock
spring at one end of the wire, and
Bell was electrified to hear the sound
in another room. For forty weeks the
instrument struggled, as it were for
human speech. Then on March 10,
1876, Watson became almost insane
with Joy when he heard over the
wire, Bells voice, saying
"Mr. Watson, come here, l want
you"
On his twenty-ninth birthday, Bell
received his patent. 1t was at the
Centennial Exposition held at Phil
adelphia, two months later, where
men of science the world over who
had come to examine and study the
numerous inventions exhibited, saw
Prof. Bell give practical demonstra-
ton of the transmission of the hui
man voice by electricity.