THE FIRST INSULATOR

Collectors of the crown jewels everywhere are on the prowl for new and different finds to add yet more pages to our records. We've all seen illustrations and, in some cases, actual photographs of the glass block drawer pulls, bottle necks, threadless etc. used on the early telegraph lines. Well, it appears we have stumbled onto a genuine first and I use "first" reservedly.

In the 1830's, numerous men of science were experimenting on various schemes to transmit messages via the "telegraph." In all our research on this subject we find very little mention of the methods used to string the necessary wire/wires. We do know that Cook and Wheatstone developed a 5 wire system that was used by the Great Western Railroad in England during this period. However, no particulars on the insulators used has come to this author's attention.

Enter a German professor, Carl Steinbeil, who bothered to describe his method of insulating his 2 wire system. Following is a quote from the Scientific American of February 23, 1884. "These wires were stretched from one steeple to another, and, where the distance between two spires was too great, were supported by poles forty or fifty feet in height. These poles, which were 600 to 800 feet apart, carried at their extremities wooden crosspieces surrounded by felt as an insulator." 

Having been an avid seeker of telephone/telegraph history since 1948, I've learned that no so-called "first" is absolute. Somewhere out there in collectordom is an individual who will find the true first insulator. And when you do, we'll be the "first" to congratulate you.

MA

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