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The Telephone 157 preservation. Watson stayed with the company until 1881, when he too terminated his connection with telephones, came to Europe for a rest, and two years later returned home to devote his attention to the building of battleships. In this work he founded what is to-day the largest shipbuilding concern in the United States, from active participation in which he retired in 1903 to enjoy well-merited rest in the country. Meantime, Theodore Vail was commencing to exert his influence, and in no uncertain manner. He saw that the telephone, if confined to the limits of a town or city, could never become a pronounced success, either financially or otherwise. He urged that it was necessary to link up cities, towns, villages, hamlets, and even isolated homes, bringing one and all into a huge intercommunicating network. People laughed at the idea, which they described as a wild and impossible dream; but the man at the reins remained unmoved by gibe or ridicule. He had a commanding and persuasive manner with him which none could overcome. If he wanted any money to fulfil a dream he always succeeded in getting it. Financiers might raise objections, criticisms, and even demur, but eventually they came round to his views. Vail’s first proposal was startling, in very truth. He decided to link Boston with New York by tele- phone. A vigorous attempt was made to dissuade him, but he refused to be thwarted. His first con- necting link of this character was sixteen miles in length, between Salem and Boston, the two towns which had played such a prominent part in the story of the invention of the telephone. It was a trunk line