He was born on August 18, 1839 in South Danvers, Massachussets, United States, then part of Salem, of a family settled in Salem and Gloucester since the seventeenth century. His father was George Thomas Sanders and his mother, Mary Ann (Brown).
He was educated in the common schools.
Very early he went into the business of breeding horses on a farm near East Brookfield, Vt. In 1870 he sold this farm, taking a smaller place near by at Williamstown, and moved to Haverhill, Massachussets. There he established a successful leather business and continued also his interest in horses.
He acquired a beautiful estate in Haverhill, which he called "Birchbrow, " where he and his family kept open house to their friends during the rest of his life.
To educate his deaf son Sanders was introduced by Miss Sarah Fuller, principal of the School for the Deaf in Boston, to the young instructor in Visible Speech, or lip-reading, Alexander Graham Bell. In the fall of 1873 Sanders engaged Bell to teach his son, and for several years thereafter Bell lived with the child and his grandmother in Salem, going often to Boston for his other work. In Mrs. Sanders' house Bell conducted experiments that led up to the invention of the telephone, in connection with these experiments giving little George manual training coordinated with his regular lessons.
Deeply grateful for the extraordinary results of Bell's teaching, though skeptical of the practical value of his scheme of "talking by telegraph, " Sanders undertook to give the inventor whatever money he needed for his experiments. Sanders advanced the money required during the period of experiment and early organization of the telephone enterprise, putting more than $110, 000 into it before he got a dollar back, but by an agreement signed Feb. 27, 1875, with Bell and Gardiner Greene Hubbard, who contributed executive ability and business acumen to the combination, he received an equal share in the ownership of Bell's inventions.
When the Bell Telephone Company was formed with Hubbard as trustee in July 1877, Sanders was made treasurer. When his own resources gave out, he enlisted the financial support of George L. Bradley and others, thus bringing about in 1878 the formation of the New England Telephone Company, of which Sanders was treasurer and then president. Soon he and Bradley enlisted the support of the Forbes interests and secured the union of the telephone organizations in 1879 into the National Bell Telephone Company, with William H. Forbes as president.
Sanders continued as a director of the Telephone Company until his death. Meantime, he was actively interested in a silver and antimony mine in New Brunswick, and he also invested $250, 000 in a silver mine at Ouray, Colo. , but the repeal of the silver-purchase clause of the Sherman Act in 1893 caused him severe losses.
It was while driving up to his Vermont farm that he was suddenly taken ill and died of a heart attack in Derry, N. H. , at the age of seventy-two.
Sanders gave to the invention of the telephone Alexander Graham Bell money for his help in education of Sanders's deaf son. When the Bell Telephone Company was formed, Sanders was made treasurer. He also found additional financial support for formation of the New England Telephone Company, of which Sanders was treasurer and then president, later National Bell Telephone Company. Throught his life he continued his interest in fine breeding. He did a great deal in the development of the Morgan horse, Merino sheep, and Jersey cattle. He was the organizer of the Vermont Livestock Company, a regular exhibitor at the Vermont State Fair.
He was a member of the Essex Agricultural Society, and a life member of the New England Agricultural Society, and was active in all these organizations.
He was keenly interested in fine animals, he rode horseback all his life.
Sanders married Susan Bradley Howe of Haverhill on June 6, 1866. The eldest of their eight children, George, was born deaf, and Thomas Sanders was seeking the best possible means of education for this boy.
