Williams became one of the leading manufacturers of telegraphic instruments, bought-out his partner. In 1856, he moved into space above a Billiard Hall in a large building on 109 Court Street. By 1868, when the young Thomas Edison rented some loft space from Williams, 109 Court St. could be considered Boston's first Innovation District, with ''Charles Williams Jr. Manufacturer of Telegraph Instruments,” serving as its hub and incubator.
On a regular basis inventors, experimenters and entrepreneurs hired Williams to have their experimental designs fabricated, or even to hire some of Williams “mechanics” to work on private projects in the loft. Some of these included: Joseph Stearns – duplex telegraphy; Edwin Holmes -- electromagnetic burglar alarm – led to the Holmes' Burglar Alarm Company.
William advanced credit to Edison for materials, and work. The results: Patent number 90646 Improvement in Electrographic Vote-Recorder; self adjusting relay; stock printer; and a fire alarm telegraph. Edison wrote, “... though but a short time since damaged by fire [3 months], is again in full blast....the work is of a most excellent character... Ten men are employed here. The office of the well known electrician and telegraph inventor, Moses G. Farmer, is also at this establishment.“
By 1874, when Professor Alexander Graham Bell arrived at Williams shop needing help in implementing his idea for the “Harmonic Telegraph,” the two dozen “mechanics,” included a young Thomas Watson, a machinist's apprentice. Watson wrote, “There were twenty hand lathes and two engine lathes in addition to hand tools. Brass, steel, lumber and rough castings lay all about. Williams' workers started with raw wood and metal and amidst the shop, there was one tiny office which handled client meetings and the display of apparatus.”
The work of Bell and Watson, financed by Gardiner Greene Hubbard, a Boston Brahmin lawyer from Salem, would result in United States Patent No. 174,465, issued to Alexander Graham Bell in 1876, for “Improvements to Telegraphy” – commonly considered to be the single most valuable patent in history. After the founding of the Bell Company, Hubbard hired Watson for a continuation of his journeyman wages, and a 10% interest in the Bell patents. In 1881, Watson now a wealthy young man, bought some land at Quincy Point in Braintree to build steam engines. This enterprise eventually evolved into the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, which played a major role in WWII.
In 1877, Williams had the first private telephones installed in his house in Somerville, with the first telephone line laid the 3 miles to 109 Court St. 1882, with telephone business booming, Williams sold-out to Western Electric, transforming his shop into the first Bell Labs. He retired in 1886, becoming one of the first of a long-line of Telecommunications Millionaires. By the time that Williams passed-on in 1908, calls were being made to Denver