Predecessor To The Bell Company
The Bell Patent Association (a name later assigned by historians), was technically not a corporate entity but a trusteeship and a partnership, and was first established verbally in 1874 to be the holders of the patents produced by Bell and his assistant Thomas Watson.
Approximate one-third interests were at first held by Gardiner Greene Hubbard, a lawyer and Bell's future father-in-law; Thomas Sanders, the well-to-do leather merchant father of one of Bell's deaf students (and who was the very first to enter into an agreement with Bell); and finally by Alexander Graham Bell himself. Hubbard would subsequently register some of his shares with two other family members. An approximate 10% interest of the patent association was later assigned by its principals to Bell's technical assistant Thomas Watson, in lieu of salary and for his earlier financial support to Bell while they worked together creating their first functional telephones.
The verbal Patent Association agreement was first formalized in a memorandum of agreement on February 27, 1875. The Patent Association's assets would later became the foundational assets of the Bell Telephone Company.
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