"My phone number is Hillcrest 7
..."
Michael Hillman
Occasionally, and becoming rarer
by the day, you can hear one of
the area's senior citizens use
this phrase when asked their
telephone number. Hillcrest, for
those that don't know, was the
designation given to the
Emmitsburg phone exchange when
dial up service was introduced
back in 1954. Eventually its use
fell out of favor and it was
replaced by the current '44', a
victim of society's never ending
rushed to throw out the old and
make way for the new.
The '44' used with today's
Emmitsburg phones still
represents Hillcrest. The
Hillcrest exchange, as was the
case of all "named" exchanges,
was dialed as "HI" which is
"44". This system was true for
the entire Bell Phone Company.
The third number "7" (447) was
added as more phone customers
were placed on line.
While most everyone agrees that
having the ability to pick up a
phone and dial anywhere in the
world is wonderful, some do miss
the nostalgic era of the
switchboard operator, where your
voce was instantly recognized
and all you needed to say was
"Gimme out home," and you were
connected to your house.
The first legal record that
mentions telephones is in
1895. In that year, the first
telephone poles were installed
in Emmitsburg, which where
promptly ordered to be removed
by the town government ...
According to a story in the
'1957 Bicentennial' edition of
the
Emmitsburg Chronicle
- an edition that is
unfortunately riddled with
inaccuracies - the first
telephone's was installed in
Emmitsburg in 1882.
Unfortunately for the early
promoters of the local
Emmitsburg phone company, few in
town subscribed to the new
service, and in 1891 its ceased
operation.
On
February 26, 1903, out of
concern over the proliferation
of power and telephone poles,
the town passed Ordinance No.
104 which gave it power to
regulate the placing of
telephone poles and wires in the
streets or alleys of the town.
The ordinance, according to town
minutes, specifically prohibited
poles on the main street of the
town.
How early phones worked
In
1893, the first central office
exchange with a common battery
for talking and signaling began
operating in Lexington,
Massachusetts. This common
battery arrangement provided
electricity to all telephones
controlled by the central
office. Each customer's
telephone previously needed its
own battery to provide power.
Common battery had many
consequences, including changing
telephone design. The big and
bulky wall sets with dry
batteries providing power and
cranks to signal the operator
could be replaced with sleek
desk sets.
A
basic manual switchboard for
magneto telephones was provided
with magnetically -released
"drops" so that the operator
would not have to watch
constantly for the transient
indication of a lamp or anything
similar, and the calling line
could be easily identified. A
party desiring a connection
would call the operator by
several turns on the magneto,
and the ringing current would
release a drop at the
switchboard. When a drop fell,
the operator would plug the
answering end of a patch cord
into the jack. Then, she would
manually close the "drop." The
caller would then tell the
operator whom they wished to be
connected to. The other end of
the patch cord was then plugged
into the jack for the called
party, and the phone "rung" by
the operator. When the called
party answered, the connection
was complete, and the
conversation could take place.
When the caller, or the called
party, rang off, the drop would
again fall, and the operator
would remove the jacks
connecting the two.
When a new common battery
switchboard was installed. All
the subscribers were able to
reach the operator just by
lifting the telephone handset.
Telephone numbers became
colorful, with the party lines
being referred to as red, green,
blue and white. Most residence
lines were shared by three or
four families, but this
situation was much better than
what the rural subscribers
endured. The rural farmer lines
had eight-to twenty party
service, and users were still
required to crank the telephone
in order to reach the operator.
The multiple-party farmer lines
were quite special. The rural
subscribers were reached by
coded ringing. For example,
someone's telephone number may
have been two longs, a short and
a long. To reach an individual,
the operator or calling party
would have to turn the crank on
the telephone for two seconds,
pause, turn the crank again for
two seconds, pause, crank for
one second, pause, then crank
again for two seconds.
The long ring was considered a
multiple of ten, i.e., two longs
meant twenty. Using this rule
Bill Garner could give his
family's ring of two long and
two short as 22. While
Polly Baumgardner Shank
could give out her parents ring
at their great
Fort Henry
mansion: two long and three
short as 23. Of course, it was
up to the operators to remember
what party line to ring the
number on.
This system of multiple-party
lines, with coded ringing, had
it's own unique phone number
system. The number for
Thornton Rodgers (in
the 1940's) according to his
son, Don Rodgers, "was 134F4;
'134' indicated the line and the
"4" was the number of rings. There were four homes on N.
Seton Ave. on the line with the
Rodgers' but four is not a large
number compared to some who
lived out side of town. Don
had a good friend who lived
outside of town and his number
was 36F13. "That meant there
were at least 13 people on the
line all of whom could (and
often did) pick up the phone and
listen to your conversation.
More important was the fact that
if one phone out of the thirteen
was busy you couldn't get
through and there wasn't
anything you could do about it
except, in an emergency, ask the
operator to break in."
If
you were calling someone on your
own line, you didn't need to go
through the operator, but ring
their "ring" directly. You only
had to go through "central', as
the the operators were called,
if you wanted to call someone
not on your line. People would
call central with any kind of
information; from death
announcements weddings, fires,
accidents, &c.
To
connect to someone in another
town, you had to tell the
operator the town's name and the
phone number of the person you
wanted to connect to. If the
town you were calling was local,
the operator could connect to
their counterpart in that town,
and once they contacted the
person being called, you were
connected. If you were calling a
distance town, you might have to
be connected through several
operators before your call was
connected.
Whenever anyone on a party line
would receive a call, everyone
on the line knew it because his
phone would ring as well.
Everyone was able to quickly
distinguish his ring without
much effort. Anyone on the line
could also "listen in" on the
conversation and even
participate.
If
the operator received a call
asking to be connected to
"Hillcrest-X," she knew it was
an out-of-towner. The word would
spread quickly, and others on
the party line would pick up
their receivers and listen in.
"Of course," Polly added with a
smile, "I never did that. My
mother however occasionally
listened in, and one day she
heard them talking about her
listening in on phone calls. She
laughed out loud upon hearing
this, which of course gave her
away."
Listen in on other people calls
was considered impolite ... but
everyone suspected it was done.
Ruth Richards, in her story,
The Women of Main Street,
recounts that a "Miss Warthen, a
most efficient woman ... thought
I was listening in on other
people's conversations."
The best time to listen, if you
were so inclined said Polly, was
late at night. That's when all
the boys would call their
girlfriends. Unfortunately, you
just couldn't pick up the phone
and talk to her, but had to ring
her ... a ring everyone on the
line could hear.
As
Don Rodgers already alluded to, party lines did have
another down side, someone
invariably was always on them!
When asked how this was
resolved, Bill Gardener
chuckled "You just picked up the
phone and told the people
talking you needed the line, and
if they didn't hang up, you
would tell them "Get off! You didn't mince any words or
you would be forever waiting to get
on."
For Betty Gardner, the era of
the old phone system is a
nostalgic one. "I can picture my
self in my Grandmother's dining
room where the phone hung on the
wall at the foot of the back
stairs. Don refers to the 'lack
of privacy in the neighborhood.'
Well, there was no privacy in
the home either! When the phone
rang not only alter everyone on
the party line, but everyone
within hearing distance of the
ring. And there was no
whispering into the phone, you
had to talk loud and clear.
You may as well have had a
speaker phone!!
The era of switchboard service
The telephone exchange for the
first phone company was opened
in Emmitsburg in the Adolphus
Harner building on West Main
street in 1884. The
switchboard operator was Mrs.
Theresa Ziegler, the daughter of
Mr. Harner.
When a second try was made at
introducing telephone service to
the town, the Harner building
was once again selected.
It remained this until 1921 when
it was moved to the front room
of the Felix house, 200 West
main street (just west of the
Present Laundromat, which at the
time was
Troxell's Feed and Grain run
by Chick, Hen and Peep Troxell).
The exchange was by the three
Felix sisters, Anna, Nellie and
Mary. The room quickly became a
favorite gather spot, as it the
one place you could go to get
the very latest on who was doing
what with who and where they
were doing it.
In
a 1954 interview, Mrs. Nellie
Felix Sullivan,
one of the three Felix sisters recounted some of her
memories, "[When I first
started], there weren't many
telephones and there weren't
many calls, and a lot of the
time we had time on our hands.
That idyllic existence change
though, as more phones were put
into service as the demand
increased. Eventually the one
panel board, which had served
for many years, had to be
increased in size and another
panel was added.
As
a little girl, Polly Baumbardner
would often wander out of her
grandmothers Helen Morrison's
house (now the funeral home) and
go next door to the Felix house,
where she would site quietly and
listen to the operators talk.
"At the time they had two
switchboards. If thing were
slow, one girl would work both
boards while the other girls
would sit and chat with
visitors. When thing got busy,
another girl would take a seat
and they both worked together.
They were constantly reaching
across each other's boards, but
they never seemed to get in each
other's way.
The girls would time the length
of each call with a clock, and
the call's length noted in a
legal ledger. At the end at the
end of every month your calls
were totaled and a bill sent.
In
the days of the switchboard,
answering machines came in the
form of your neighbors. They
frequently helped each other by
answering calls for one another.
It was not unusual to have a
neighbor tell you the person you
were calling was making hay or
had just driven by on his way to
town.
The Felix girls and those that
followed them, performed similar
services for the businesses and
residents in town. From the
window in the front of the
house, the girls could monitor
the coming and going of the
town's resident. A calling party
might be told by the one of the
girls that the person he was
calling was not in his office,
but was seen going to Troxel's
shop, so the call would be
connected there. Mary Hoke
remembers "We were even told of
calls that came for us when we
happened to be out, if they were
from a distance or important."
Polly Shank can remember picking
up the telephone and calling
into the switchboard and asking
to be connected to such and
such. "The operators always knew
who was in or out of town."
If
the person being called didn't
have a phone, then the person
closest to them with a phone was
called, and a message was left
with them.
Another use of coded ringing was
known as the line ring. One of
the consistent users of the line
ring were grocers who would come
to the telephone office each
week to line ring each party
line to give his grocery
specials of the week. This same
line call also was used to
distribute news and call
attention to special events:
"I
remember standing next to my mom
on the back porch of the farm,"
reminisced Polly, "listening to
all the church bells ringing.
Dorothy, my oldest sister came
racing up to farm on a wagon
pulled by two horses, I can
still remember her pig tails
flapping in the air she was
going so fast. When she ran into
the house, my mother told her to
call the operator to see what
was going on ... that's how we
found out that the first World
War had ended."
Businesses where the first to
embrace the telephone, as it
soon became a necessary of doing
business, and depending upon
where your business was located,
you might have more then one
line.
Shanks Mill for
example, had one line connecting
them to the Emmitsburg
switchboard, and another
connecting them to the Fairfield
switchboard.
William Hays, in his
At the End of the Emmitsburg
Line, fondly remembers
the switchboard era:
"We had a telephone, although
not in the house. It was in the
shop. At the Exchange, the
operator was Miss Nellie Felix,
who lived some nine or ten
houses down the street. Her
switchboard was in the front
room of her home, with her chair
near the window, so as to be
able to report whether or not a
particular person was in town.
Papa never really came to terms
with the phone. He didn't ask
for a certain number; he simply
asked 'Miss Nellie' to get him
the freight office, or the
College or what have you.
I
recall one man from out of town,
I think his name was Dick Stull,
who would come to the shop and,
while there, would use our
phone. But, instead of trusting
it to do its work, he thought he
should shout loud enough to be
heard without it. Apparently,
the person on the other end was
so stunned by the shouting, that
his attempt to answer never got
through to Dick, and this
resulted in him turning up the
volume and ultimately to curse
the damned thing 'to Hell and
back.' It was a splendid
performance.
Then there was Miss Georgia
Moore, who lived near the
college. Miss Georgia had all
sorts of problems, mostly minor
household ones, and not
necessarily limited to plumbing,
but each of which led her to
call the shop. If Papa answered,
which he avoided if possible,
dear Miss Georgia would tell him
of some terrifying thing that
had happened and would he come
right away. Once she said that a
strange man had just walked past
her door, and what should she do
and 'Please, Mr. Hays, you must
come right away, etc, etc, etc.'
At this point, Papa would, if he
could spot one of us, hand the
telephone over saying it was
Miss Georgia and to just keep
listening."
While business and town
residents were well served, the
cost of running a line to rural
customers often far outweighed
the return to the phone company,
so it was up rural resident to
fend for themselves when it came
to procuring phone service. John
Fuss in his story
The Life and times of John
and Helen Fuss recounts
how his father became:
"...involved in a business
relationship with the telephone
company. An association called
the Locust Grove Telephone
Company provided telephone
services for eight subscribers
in the Harney Road area. J. Rowe
Ohler had been one of the
founders. This line connected to
the Chesapeake and Potomac
Telephone Company lines at the
Taneytown Road.
That company sent only one bill
to the Locust Grove Telephone
Company. When John moved to the
Locust Grove farm, he was
appointed head of the
association. He received the
bills from the telephone company
and had to pay them in their
entirety. Then he would have to
collect from the individual
subscribers. Sometimes the
subscribers claimed they hadn't
made the call and then John
would either have to work it out
with the telephone company or
pay it himself. He did not
relish this function."
Over the years, the Emmitsburg
exchange saw many operators, in
addition to the Felex girls.
These included the wife of
Thornton W. Rodgers, Lucy R.
Bollinger, Inus J. Glass, Betty
Ann Glass, Margaret V. Bouey,
Darlene J. Brewer, Marian E.
Boyle and Virgina Wageman.
The switch over to Dial up
service
Through the years, as business
increased; Emmitsburg remained
an "agency office," that is Mrs.
Sullivan, hired, aided, handled
business and was reimbursed by
the telephone company. Only in
1953 did the office become a
company-owned, with the company
paying operators directly and
employing the young ladies who
handled the exchange.
Dial phone service in Emmitsburg
officially went into effect on
Wednesday morning, January 7,
1954 at 7:00 a.m. The old
switchboard was replaced by
modern switching gear located in
a newly erected building at the
intersection of Potomac St. and
Chesapeake Ave. [The plane
cinder block building behind the
post office). The manual
exchange passed out of existence
on January 27, 1954.
Dial up service brought with it
the idea that one had a "phone
number" not "ring." Three new
exchanges were created to serve
the area: HI (Hillcrest) to
serve the residents of
Emmitsburg and the areas to the
east; HU (Hubbard) for residents
along old Tract Road; and ED
(Edgewood) for residents north
of Emmitsburg along Route 15.
At
first, it was not necessary to
dial the first two letters of
the exchange if you were calling
someone locally, but only the
last five digits. However, when
dialing for long distance the
exchange letters had to be
given. Only after further
"improvements" were made did it
become a requirement to use all
7 digits. Of course, today,
after the most recent round of
improvements, you have to dial
10 digits - or is it 11? - and
cross your fingers that you did
it right.
Frankly, if given the choice, I
think it would be nice to just
pick up the phone like Tom
Gingle used to do and simply say
"Nellie, Gimme out home!"
Read other history articles
by Mike Hillman
Have your own memories of the
old switchboard telephone system
of Emmitsburg? If so, send
them to us at history@emmitsburg.net
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