The Reynolds Telegraph and Telephone Company

 

Frank Reynolds was the oldest of the four Reynolds Bros.  demonstrated acute business acumen first with the creation of the Telegraph line that linked not only Reynoldston but many other communities in both Franklin and St. Lawrence Counties.   Similarly with the creation of the Telephone Line Reynoldston became the hub for telephones for the area and as far away as St. Regis Fall, and Dickinson Center. Similarly it was probably Frank Reynolds who created the name Reynoldston with the establishment of a Post Office at the Mill.

Date of Installation of Lines to othe communities

 1887        Reynolds Build Telephone Line to Reynoldston and other towns: 
             switchboard in Reynolds Store

1894     Reynolds’ Mill name changed to Reynoldston

1894      Post Office opens in Reynoldston;  Henry Lincoln 1^st Postmaster

1895     Line to Everton 

1897     Reynoldston Telegraph expands to Owls Head     

 1899    Telephone Connected to Malone and other points

 1900       Telephone line to St. Regis Falls

1901     Reynoldston Telephone Line built –  to Dickinson Center

1905     Telephone line to Moira 

1907     Forest fire attacked line to St. Regis Falls 

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 Beatrice Beaman 

“Uncle Frank was a little, little man and he was interested in…He was the one who had the telephone and telegraph things like that up there.  He was the oldest and he was quite a church goer and so on…he was Methodist. “

                                                                                                                                                    Beatrice Beaman tape 8 

“What I first remember was the telegraph, they put in the telegraph and a few of them could understand and use it.  And then they put in the telephone.  The kind that you rung and rung and everybody listened in until they put their receivers down so you didn’t get very good ( reception), but they could be used in an emergency. 

We always had the mail…the mail came in every day.  I think hat the mail just came and they left it there and then people came in the and go it.  Now I don’t’ think that they had RFD at that time.   I rather think that that was still the future.   We had a regular little post office in the store and it was left there and newspaper were about your only way of learning things.  You see the nearest newspaper would have been here in Malone, the Palladium, the Farmer. 

They usually had one (secretary) in the office there and after they go the telephone central after a while …your mother (grandmother) worked in their for a while did’t she?I know one of the Moquin girls worked in there for a while.  I can’t remember which one. 

                                                                                                                                                          Beatrice Beaman tape 2 p. 2 

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 DanWhitcomb

 “Frank was more of a store man around…worked in the store…ordered supplies for the store and all that stuff, but he wasn’t a clerk.  Be in there most of the time in the store.  He as small,  little fellow.  The rest were taller.  (store)  Two or three parts to it to that store…kind of a storage out back and …quite a big building.   (the office in the store)  in the back.      Came into the store from one side there…right straight through into the office…telephone was in there.   That is what the office girls did….One of Berton’g girls, she was Millicent, and we had one before Millicent….Haidee Rushlaw she was there too…both run the telephone there…answered the telephones.    Haidee she married a Rushlaw.    ….but her right name was McGoon.  She was a telephone girl…she took it after  6:00″ 

                                                                                                                                                           Dan Whitcomb tape 1 page 1

Haidee Rushlaw 

“Two steps go down to the office, ( Company Store) was the post office where the
telephone was and I worked in there and then there was a private office aside from that.  And this was where the book keeper used to do his work.  There was a
typewriter and I used to type out the telephone calls.  We had a lot of subscribers….The Reynoldston Telephone Line of course it was.  They also had telegraph years back. (no cost to phone Malone)  I don’t think it was anything I don’t remember.   I know we used to say central,  Malone we would call central.  We had telephones in Chasm Falls, Dickinson and Everton, I think that’s the name, that was a place.  (no telephones in  houses)   I don’t remember anyone coming in the office.  The was a phone up in my
home…there was one there.” 

                                                                                                                                                 Haidee Rushlaw Tape 1 page 1

 

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 Daisy Bordeaux 

Daisy Bordeaux: “I tended the telephone and  I done housework for Bessie, Frank Reynold’s wife.

Mr. Langlois:  What was he telephone job? 

Daisy Bordeaux: I answered the telephone and  connected people on other lines together, ran
the switchboard.  They had a switchboard. 

Mr. Langlois:  For people around here had telephones? 

Daisy Bordeaux:   People in Dickinson, Alberg, and places on the turnpike.  Frank Reynolds owned the telephone line up here.

Mr. Langlois: Did people up here have telephones too? 

Daisy Bordeaux:   No, maybe one, fairly rare…I don’t think not too many around Reynoldston.  I don’t believe they did.  I can’t remember.  I don’t know. 

Mr. Langlois:   How about Albert and Allen Bordeaux? 

Daisy Bordeaux:   No they didn’t have no telephones.  Until late years grandma and grandpa got them……

Mr. Langlois:   How about the telegraph?  Did you have anything to do with the telegraph?  

Daisy Bordeaux: No.” 

                                                                                                                                               Daisy Bordeaux Tape 9 page 7-8