Some say that Alexander Graham Bell invented it; that he beat Elisha Gray to the patent office by several hours. Thus he was the legitimate inventor.

Others say that Gray beat Bell, that he arrived at the office first thing that Monday morning, and his application went to the bottom of the In Box. A matter of First In Last Out.

And yet another version says that the seven sentences that were scrawled in the margin of the Bell patent – and the only sentences that said anything at all about a telephone – were added later after an improper review by the Bell attorneys.

We’ll never know.

But what we do know is that Samuel S. White of Philadelphia, the man who provided financing for Gray’s inventions, urged him to abandon any legal steps challenging Bell. Gray followed that advice, and by so doing, abandoned any claim on the patent.

Gray’s early life was rather inauspicious. He was born into a Quaker family in Barnseville, Ohio, in 1835. He had to leave school early because his father died, but later he completed preparatory school and two years at Oberlin College. He supported himself by being a carpenter.

At college he became fascinated by electricity, and in 1867 received his first patent (it dealt with a telegraph relay). This was followed by 70 additional inventions and patents.

It was the invention of the telephone, of course, that was of the greatest importance. Gray had been working on it for some time, but was constantly discouraged by his financial benefactor, Samuel White. In spite of this opposition, Gray had his patent attorney, William D. Baldwin, prepare a caveat for filing at the US Patent Office. (A caveat delayed the filing of an actual patent application, but was just as official. It contained drawings and description, but no claims.) This caveat was filed the morning of February 14, 1876. Unbeknownst to Gray, Alexander Bell’s attorney that same morning filed Bell’s patent. We will never know who was first, or whether the various documents were handled properly. We do know that Gray did not challenge Bell’s filing, and by so doing (or not so doing) he essentially acknowledged that Bell’s patent took precedence.

Of almost equal importance to the invention of the telephone was Gray’s involvement in the business world. In 1869, seven years before the invention of the telephone, Gray joined with Enos Barton to found Gray & Barton Co., to supply equipment to Western Union. In 1872 Western Union bought one-third of Gray & Barton, and changed the name to Western Electric Manufacturing Company. And in 1881, five years after the invention of the telephone, American Bell (predecessor of AT&T) bought controlling interest in Western Electric. Thus Elisha Gray was in fact one of the founders of Western Electric, the manufacturing arm of AT&T.

We have said, in an almost off-hand manner, that Bell, and Gray, “invented” the telephone. Just what was this “telephone,” and how did it work?

The major challenge was the microphone. Telegraph systems had for years been sending signals over wires, even long distance wires, but these were yes/no signals. The signal was either there, or it was not there. Bell had been working on various devices for sending a number of tones over these wires, and so had Elisha Gray. Both men were using a “water microphone.” The goal was to insert into an electric circuit a device whose electric resistance would vary in response to a human voice. Bell dipped a wire into a jar of water to which some acid had been added (acidulated water was a pretty good conductor). As this wire moved up and down in the jar, the meniscus of the fluid on the wire would move, and the resistance of the circuit (wire to jar) would vary. This changing resistance would cause a direct current in the apparatus to vary, and this varying signal would be transmitted down the wire to the receiving end. This apparatus worked – but barely.

Elisha Gray also used a water microphone apparatus, but in an entirely different way. Gray’s wire extended almost to the bottom of the jar. There were a few millimeters of acidulated water between the bottom of the wire and the metal plate at the bottom of the glass container holding the water. In operation a speaker’s voice would cause a diaphragm to vibrate. The wire extending out of the jar of acidulated water would be attached to the diaphragm, and therefore would move up and down in response to the speaker’s voice. This motion would cause the distance between the bottom of the wire and the metal plate to change, and the result would be a varying direct current signal. This apparatus worked!

Many improvements were made over the years to the described apparatus, an important one by Thomas Edison. Edison substituted dry carbon granules for the water apparatus, and the pressure of the diaphragm on the carbon granules would cause them to compress. As a result the resistance of the microphone would vary. This carbon transmitter proved extremely successful, and, it would be universally used till the mid-20th Century. Other improvements included the telephone dial, the Strowger switch that allowed the subscriber to dial his or her own calls, the anti-sidetone circuit, harmonic ringing, and central office battery, to name but a few.

But it was that first invention, the telephone itself, that opened the door to the telecommunication systems of today.