SUMNER – Robert Perry presented the history of the former Oxford Telephone and Telegraph company, using pictures, stories and antique phones, for the Sumner Historical Society.

Perry, the unofficial company historian, recently retired from Oxford Networks, which was formerly Oxford Telephone and Telegraph.

In 1900, Alva Andrews was loading homemade caskets on a train in Bryant Pond when he noticed a roll of wire on a wagon, Perry said. The idea came to him of the possibility of having communications from his factory to the railroad station which he desperately needed. He purchased three miles of wire and connections and Oxford Telephone and Telegraph was born.

Bryant Pond boasts the longest running hand crank telephone system in the country, Perry said. The last call on the magneto systems was made at 2 p.m. Oct. 11, 1983 with 200 people in attendance.

In 1939 Oxford Telephone and Telegraph was the first to install a dialing system in the state. Now there are thousands of circuits going through tiny fiber optic lines. Where repeaters used to be 6,000 feet apart, the circuits can now go hundreds of miles, Perry said.

Perry said he remembers his days as a lineman when telephone workers trudged miles on snowshoes carrying heavy packs and climbing poles with more than 30 pounds around their waist.

Oxford Networks lines are usually strung on poles because of the expense of repairing damage caused by backhoes digging up lines, he said. It takes hours and thousands of dollars to splice one of the fiber optic lines, so contractors are advised to call Dig Safe before doing any digging where lines are buried.