Background
He was born in 1835 into a Quaker family in Barnesville, Ohio, Gray was brought up on a farm.
He was born in 1835 into a Quaker family in Barnesville, Ohio, Gray was brought up on a farm.
He was educated at Oberlin College, where he paid for his keep and tuition by working as a carpenter.
On leaving college Gray started to experiment with electricity, turning his attention to the improvement of the telegraph. He then investigated the subject of telegraphy, and in 1867 patented a telegraphic switch and annunciator.
In 1869, Elisha Gray and his partner Enos M. Barton founded Gray & Barton Co. in Cleveland, Ohio to supply telegraph equipment to the giant Western Union Telegraph Company. The electrical distribution business was later spun off and organized into a separate company, Graybar Electric Company, Inc. Barton was employed by Western Union to examine and test new products. The company moved to Chicago near Highland Park. Gray later gave up his administrative position as chief engineer to focus on inventions that could benefit the telegraph industry. Gray's inventions and patent costs were financed by a dentist, Dr. Samuel S. White of Philadelphia, who had made a fortune producing porcelain teeth. White wanted Gray to focus on the acoustic telegraph which promised huge profits instead of what appeared to be unpromising competing inventions such as the telephone, White made the decision in 1876 to redirect Gray's interest in the telephone. In 1870, Gray developed a needle annunciator for hotels and another for elevators. He also developed a microphone printer which had a typewriter keyboard and printed messages on paper tape. In 1872 Western Union, then financed by the Vanderbilts and J. P. Morgan, bought one-third of Gray and Barton Co. and changed the name to Western Electric Manufacturing Company of Chicago. Gray continued to invent for Western Electric. In 1874, Gray retired to do independent research and development.
Because of Samuel White's opposition to Gray working on the telephone, Gray did not tell anybody about his invention for transmitting voice sounds until February 11, 1876 (Friday). Gray requested that his patent lawyer William D. Baldwin prepare a "caveat" for filing at the US Patent Office. On Monday morning February 14, 1876, Gray signed and had notarized the caveat that described a telephone that used a liquid transmitter.
In 1887 Gray invented the telautograph, a device that could remotely transmit handwriting through telegraph systems. Gray was granted several patents for these pioneer fax machines, and the Gray National Telautograph Company was chartered in 1888 and continued in business as The Telautograph Corporation for many years.
Gray was a charter member of the Presbyterian Church in Highland Park, Illinois.
In 1862 while at Oberlin, Gray met and married Delia Minerva Shepard.