Gardiner Greene Hubbard Forms the Bell Telephone Company, later the American Bell Telephone Company

The Bell Telephone Company was organized in Boston, Massachusetts on July 9, 1877 by Alexander Graham Bell's father-in-law Gardiner Greene Hubbard, who also helped organize a sister company — the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company. The Bell Telephone Company was started on the basis of holding "potentially valuable patents," principally Bell's master telephone patent #174465. Renamed the National Bell Telephone Company in March 1879, it became the American Bell Telephone Company in March 1880.