Few people are aware that one of the earliest telephone pioneers in Canada was a jeweller and goldsmith - Cyrille Duquet of Quebec City. And in those days it took a man of vision to see a future in the telelphone!

In 1877, Mr. Duquet had installed for his own use a private telephone line between his main store in Upper Town and a branch establishment in suburban St. Roch. Soon a number of his telephones were in use in various parts of the city.

Alexander Graham Bell had assigned his Canadian patent rights to his father, Melville Bell, since the latter was living in Brantford while his son was in Boston. By 1879, however, Melville Bell felt that he could no longer carry on the telephone business and wished to sell the patent.

Meanwhile, as we now know, other interests had taken steps to secure the Federal charter under which our Company is incorporated, and the charter was granted April 29, 1880.

Among those to whom it was offered was Mr. Duquet, the condition being that he would form a company which would guarantee Bell $100,000. Had Mr. Duquet been able to raise the necessary capital, he might well have founded The Bell Telephone Company of Canada.

Mr. Duquet formed the Quebec & Levis Telephone Company in 1881 but in the next year sold his plant contracts and patents to the Bell.

Mr. Duquet invented an improvement on Alexander Graham Bell's telephone, which had been patented in Canada in 1877. The Duquet telephone, patented February1 , 1878, called for the use of permanent magnets of round or flat steel in the form of a bunch or cluster to be used in the telephone, which at that time consisted simply of what we would call the receiver, the one device being used for both talking and listening. (A person using the telephone in those days moved the receiver alternately from mouth to ear, and when he became excited might find himself talking with his ear and listening with his mouth!)

In the following year, he conducted successful experiments over telegraph wires between Montreal and Ottawa, and Montreal and Quebec, the latter over a distance of 200 miles. Songs were sung, one of which The Last Rose of Summer, was again sung at the unveiling ceremony 78 years later by La Maitrise de Quebec, famed boys' choir.

I's interesting to note that businessmen had so little faith in the telephone that it was only with great difficulty that Mr. Duquet raised $3,000 in his own home town. In Montreal, he couldn't raise a cent, and was called a "naive imbecile" even though he offered to build a line from Montreal to Quebec and pay for it himself if it didn't work well.

In 1880, the Bell had established the first central office providing exchange, as opposed to private line service in Quebec at 32 Fabrique Street, and a plaque now marks that spot as well as the site of the residence of Quebec's telephone pioneer, Cyrille Duquet, at 31 St. John Street.