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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Elisha Gray Biography GRAY, Elisha (1835-1901). An American inventor, born at Barnesville in Ohio. He attended Oberlin College, supporting himself by working at the trade of a carpenter. In 1867 he obtained his first patent, which was for telegraphic apparatus. Subsequently he received nearly 50 patents, relating principally to the telephone and other electrical apparatus. Claims were advanced in behalf of Gray as one of the inventors of the speaking telephone (q.v.), for which he filed specifications, Feb. 14, 1876; but the patent was awarded to Alexander Graham Bell (q.v.), whose rights were sustained by the Supreme Court. Among his other inventions were a system of multiplex telegraphy, a typeprinting telegraph, the telautograph (q.v.), and numerous telegraphic and telephonic appliances and adjuncts. He was for a number of years engaged in the manufacture of telegraphic apparatus in Chicago and Cleveland. He was the author of Experimental Researches in Electro-Harmonie Telegraphy and Telephony (1878), a book based upon his experiments. The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. X (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 274. |