Letter from T. Arthur Potts to the Secretary of Henry Ford regarding Bell Telephone Insulator, circa 1925

In August 1876, Alexander Graham Bell conducted additional experiments on voice transmission over wire -- he had successfully patented his telephone a few months earlier. While in Brantford, Ontario, Bell strung a wire from a nearby telegraph line along a fence to his father's home. Thomas Potts wrote to the secretary of Henry Ford, donating one of the telephone insulators recovered from the site.