Bell Telephone Company - Earliest Division of Bell Company Shares

Earliest Division of Bell Company Shares

At the time of the organization of the Bell Telephone Company (also known as the Bell Company) as a joint stock company in 1877 by Hubbard, who became its trustee and de facto president, 5,000 shares in total were issued to:

• Gardiner Greene Hubbard (trustee and president): 1,397 shares, along with
  • Gertrude McC. Hubbard, (likely Gertrude Mercer McCurdy Hubbard, wife of Gardiner Hubbard): 100 shares
  • Charles Eustis Hubbard (the nephew of Gardiner Hubbard): 10 shares
• Alexander Graham Bell (inventor and formally the company's 'Chief Electrician'): 1,497 shares
• Thomas Sanders (financier and treasurer): 1,497 shares
• Thomas Watson (head of operations): 499 shares

Two days after the company's formation, on July 11, 1877, Bell married Hubbard's daughter Mabel Gardiner Hubbard, and made a wedding gift of 1,487 shares of his allotment to his new wife, keeping only 10 shares for himself. Bell and his wife left not long after for a tour of Europe that lasted over a year, during which time Mabel left her shares with her father under a power of attorney.

Alexander Graham Bell's ten shares of Bell Telephone Company stock were later converted into a single share of the American Bell Telephone Company, and still later into two shares of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. AT&T President Frederick Fish would subsequently return Bell's single American Bell Telephone Company share to him as a memento after it had been converted and canceled.