Invention of the telephone trials involving Meucci and Alexander Graham Bell. They claim that Meucci was the actual inventor of the telephone, and base their argument on reconstructed evidence. What follows, if not otherwise stated, is a résumé of their historic reconstruction. The above information was published in the "Scientific American" Supplement No. 520 of December 19, 1876, based on reconstructions produced in 1885, for which there was no contemporary pre-1875 evidence. Meucci's 1871 caveat did not mention any of the telephone features later credited to him by his lawyer, and which were published in that Scientific American Supplement, a major reason for the
Invention of the telephone his audience "I will switch off the song from one part of the room to another so that all can hear." At a subsequent lecture in Salem, Massachusetts, communication was established with Boston, eighteen miles distant, and Mr. Watson at the latter place sang "Auld Lang Syne", the National Anthem, and "Hail Columbia", while the audience at Salem joined in the chorus." Bell did for the telephone what Henry Ford did for the automobile. Although not the first to experiment with telephonic devices, Bell and the companies founded in his name were the first to develop commercially practical telephones around