Question:
Baldwinsville — Obviously this is a photo of a band. Do you recognize any of the musicians? See if you can guess where the picture was taken and approximately what year.
Last week’s answer:
This week’s History Mystery came as a result of the recent Beauchamp Historical Club meeting in January. The speaker was Alex Seymour, a resident of Fulton who has an extensive collection of telephone memorabilia. He worked in the telephone industry for quite a number of years. One of the items he brought was a photo of Wilbur Horner, his wife’s uncle. The photo from last week shows him standing in front of his telephone truck in 1923. At that time he pretty much ran the
Patron Telephone Company. He was the only male employee, which made him responsible for putting up lines and maintaining the equipment. His wife ran the switchboard. Eventually, someone else did the switchboard at night.
To be a part of the service, a patron purchased a share for $50, which entitled him to four years of service. This was billed four times a year.
When Wilbur started his employment in 1923, there were 375 people with phone service. He was paid $2,500 a year and had to furnish is own trucks, pay for the fuel oil and pay both the day and night operators. The operators were paid 20 cents an hour during the day and 25 an hour for the night shift. For a time, Wilbur’s wife did that job.
At that time, the lines were party lines with more than one family on a line. Each family had their own ring — for example, two long and one short. When the phone rang, if it was your ring ,you had an incoming call. If it was another ring, you were not supposed to answer it. This, however, didn’t prevent others from picking up their phone and listening in on the conversation. When Wilbur was running the company, one line had 27 people and three businesses on it.
continued — In checking for information about the telephone in the Lysander, the Gazette and Farmer’s Journal has articles about the Lysander Telephone Company and the Patron Telephone. It appears that the name was interchangeable. If anyone has more information about the telephone service in Lysander, please contact Bonnie Kisselstein at [email protected] or [email protected].
The Messenger only received one correct answer this week—in fact, we only received one response at all. Bill Weston even knew where Wilbur Horner was standing — across from the Lysander Hotel.
Contact Editor Sarah Hall at [email protected] or leave a message at 434-8889 ext. 310 with your guess by 5 p.m. Friday. If you are the first person to correctly identify an element in the photo, your name and guess will appear in next week’s Messenger, along with another History Mystery feature. History Mystery is a joint project of the Museum at the Shacksboro Schoolhouse and the Baldwinsville Public Library.
