Share this Page
The Telephone in Jamestown
May Town Hall Exhibit 2025
The May exhibit in Town Hall follows the history of phone service in Jamestown from the day of the operator-manned switchboard to today’s smart phone.
Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876. Less than a decade later, in 1883, the Conanicut Telegraph and Telephone Company tried to bring telephone service to Jamestown. The company’s connection to the outside world was through an underwater cable to Newport. The cable worked only sporadically and in 1885 it failed completely.
In 1893, the Newport Telephone Company decided to try again, and on May 16, 1894, Walter Wright, the telephone company agent in Newport, called Charles E. Weeden at the Thorndike Hotel to check the circuit. The telephone had come to Jamestown to stay.
Exhibit prepared by Sue Maden and Rosemary Enright.
Please consider donating your Jamestown Memorabilia to the Jamestown Historical Society.
Contact Sue Maden at 401-644-3009 or suemaden@gmail.com
Become a JHS Member
Help preserve & share the history of Jamestown, RI. Maintain the Museum, the Windmill, the Meetinghouse and the Conanicut Battery. Preserve the Society’s collection of documents, photographs and artifacts.
