On This Day in Telephone History January 21ST 1901 Professor Elisha Gray, the famous electrician, telephone and telautograph inventor and lately prominent in perfecting a system of submarine signaling, was picked up unconscious in Newtonville Square Massachusetts at 9:45 PM Sunday night. He died at 11:30 PM of heart failure at a house nearby. Professor Gray was 65 years old, and a resident of Chicago. He had for the last year and a half been living at 82 Huntington Avenue, Boston, working with Arthur J. Mundy in perfecting submarine signaling. He was returning through Newton after visiting Mr. Mundy for dinner.