History Underfoot On Beacon Hill

 

 

Today while waiting outside the Beacon Hill Market at the corner of Anderson and Myrtle with Ruebin, our dog, I spied the manhole featured in the photo. Just looking at its well worn surface I knew it was very old and the more I examined it, the more curious I became to see if I could find anything out about its history.

By doing a quick search for "NE T & T Co," the initials clearly readable on the manhole's surface, I discovered that this manhole cover is indeed very old and I was able to narrow its age to a single year.

Apparently, according to Wikipedia, The New England Telephone and Telegraph Company was a very early company set up to develop the then-new telephone. New England Telephone and Telegraph lasted only a year as a separate entity, from 1878 to 1879.

The New England Telephone and Telegraph Company was formed February 12, 1878, by investors in the states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island at the behest of an agent of Gardiner Greene Hubbard, the father-in-law of telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell. New England Telephone and Telegraph merged with the Bell Telephone Company on February 17, 1879, to form the National Bell Telephone Company.

Interesting. History underfoot on Beacon Hill!!