Most of them were well-known business men--the Bradleys, the Saltonstalls, Fay, Silsbee, and Carlton.

These men, together with Colonel William H.Forbes, who came in as a friend of the Bradleys, were the first capitalists who, for purely business reasons, invested money in the Bell patents.

Two months after the Western Union had given its weighty endorsement to the telephone, these men organized a company to do business in New England only, and put fifty thousand dollars in its treasury.
In a short time the delighted Hubbard found himself leasing telephones at the rate of a thousand a month.

He was no longer a promoter, but a general manager.

Men were standing in line to ask for agencies.