The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Story of the Telegraph, by John Murray
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A Story
OF THE
TELEGRAPH
A Story of
the
Telegraph
By JOHN MURRAY
Montreal
MONTREAL:
PRINTED BY JOHN LOVELL & SON, Ltd.
1905
Entered according to Act of Parliament, in the year one thousand nine hundred and five, by John Murray, in the office of the Minister of Agriculture and Statistics, at Ottawa.
PREFACE.
The compiler of this little compendium of Telegraph History places it in the hands of the public in the hope that it may be received with favor.
The historical data is taken from leading standard authorities.
The biographical sketches of eminent scientists and inventors will enable the reader to form his own conclusions as to the merits of each.
The sketches of prominent pioneer telegraph men in Canada should be especially interesting to Canadians.
Many names worthy of mention have been reluctantly omitted, as it was thought desirable to confine this initial work into as narrow a compass as possible. A more extended edition may be forthcoming later should this venture prove successful.
The few reminiscent incidents in the Canadian section will lend a spice of variety to the narrative.
INTRODUCTION.
The Electric Telegraph is unquestionably one of our most valuable public utilities.
In commercial life the telegraph has revolutionized business methods. Transactions are now effected between New York, London and other financial centres in minutes, which formerly occupied weeks, and even months, to accomplish. In social life the advantages of telegraph communication are equally apparent; travel where we may, we are always within reach of friends or kindred at a distance by means of the telegraph wires.
The daily Press is now enabled to record the moving accidents on flood and field in all parts of the world, a few hours or even minutes after their occurrence.
The dreadful catastrophe at Martinique, with the loss of thousands of human lives; the fire in a Chicago theatre, and the loss of hundreds of women and children through culpable negligence; the shocking loss of life on the excursion steamer “General Slocum” through lack of life-saving appliances is gruesome reading, but the public demand it; the more pleasing event of King Edward’s visit to President Loubet, on his mission of Peace, and the return visit of the latter to London are a few examples of news carried over the wires, all within the purview of the humblest reader. There are few who cannot afford the price of a daily paper, and thus keep in touch with current events, but no very long time ago a daily newspaper was beyond the reach of all but the comparatively wealthy. The advent of the telegraph with its multifarious budget of news from every quarter of the Globe caused a large increase in circulation, and a decrease in price naturally followed.
During the Crimean war, when telegraph communication had been established with the army headquarters, the working men of a manufacturing concern near Glasgow, in which the writer was employed, clubbed together to defray the cost of a daily newspaper, the price then being four pence halfpenny, much beyond the means of a single individual. During the dinner hour he read to an interested and attentive audience the latest despatches from the seat of war, many of whom would forego dinner rather than miss the daily pabulum of war news. Now all this is changed, the poorest laboring man can afford the price of a daily paper, formerly only enjoyed by his more opulent countrymen.
Still earlier, Macaulay, in his History of England, tells us of the news letter, the predecessor of the modern newspaper, wherein he says: “The news letter within a week after its arrival had been thumbed over by twenty families, and furnished the neighboring squires with matter for talk over their October, and the Rector with topics for sharp sermons.”
The news letters were collated in London, for the benefit of provincial readers. The price was no doubt high, and the contents probably consisted of gossip or scandal in high life, details of a cocking main, an affair between my Lord Tomnoddy and a Captain of the Blues, or affairs of Church and State. Now the four quarters of the earth is ransacked daily and news collected at immense labor and enormous cost by the associated press, and retransmitted to all points of the compass.
Wireless telegraphy, the latest marvel in applied science, is surely and steadily forging ahead, and will cover areas of land and sea, where the land and cable wires do not operate.
The writer feels that no apology is necessary in publishing the following brief outline of telegraph history, a subject which he believes will interest both the old as well as younger readers.
The data of English telegraph history is largely derived from an early edition of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, while that of the American is taken from a voluminous work published about a quarter of a century ago, by James D. Reid, a friend and associate of Professor Morse. The facts relating to Canadian history are taken from original records, while that of submarine and wireless telegraphy is from numerous sources of contemporary literature and personal knowledge.
While admitting there is nothing strikingly original in the work, the writer ventures to hope that the style will commend itself to those who prefer brevity to wearisome detail.
| The Telegraph in England. | |
| CONTENTS OF SECTION ONE. | |
| PAGE | |
| Explanatory | [10] |
| Telegraph, Electric | [11] |
| The Needle Telegraph | [22] |
| British Government acquires Telegraphs | [29] |
| Telegraph Development | [36] |
| Sir William Fothergill Cooke | [37] |
| Sir Charles Wheatstone | [39] |
| The Telegraph in the United States. | |
| CONTENTS OF SECTION TWO. | |
| Origin of the Telegraph | [44] |
| The Magnetic Telegraph Co. | [60] |
| The Western Union Telegraph Co. | [61] |
| The Postal Telegraph & Cable Co. | [74] |
| The Associated Press of America | [81] |
| Prof. S. F. B. Morse | [89] |
| The Telegraph in Canada. | |
| CONTENTS OF SECTION THREE. | |
| The Origin of the Montreal Telegraph Company | [108] |
| The Great North-Western Telegraph Company | [116] |
| The Canadian Pacific Telegraphs | [120] |
| Canadian Government Telegraphs | [123] |
| Remarks | [125] |
| Reminiscent Stories | [126] |
| Some Prominent Telegraphists | [165] |
| Submarine Telegraphy. | |
| CONTENTS OF SECTION FOUR. | |
| Origin Deep Sea Telegraphy | [198] |
| First Cable Company | [207] |
| First Atlantic Cable | [210] |
| Cable Repairs | [213] |
| Cable Instruments | [218] |
| Cyrus W. Field | [223] |
| Michael Faraday | [228] |
| Lord Kelvin | [229] |
| John W. Brett | [232] |
| Wireless Telegraphy. | |
| CONTENTS OF SECTION FIVE. | |
| Sketch of Signor Guiglielmo Marconi | [233] |
| Genesis of Wireless Telegraphy | [235] |
| Evolution of Wireless Telegraphy | [237] |
| The Marconi Telegraph Company | [239] |
| Wireless Telegraph Apparatus | [243] |
| Opinion of Thos. A. Edison | [245] |
| A Cable Manager’s Views | [246] |
| An Interview with Marconi | [248] |
| Trip of SS. “Minneapolis” | [252] |
| The Disabled SS. “Kroonland” | [253] |
| Uses of Wireless Telegraphy | [255] |
| A Newspaper Opinion | [256] |
| Wireless Telegraphy on the SS. “Parisian” | [260] |
| Future of Wireless Telegraphy | [264] |
| Dominion Wireless Telegraph Company | [267] |
ILLUSTRATIONS.
| PAGE | |
| Frontispiece | [1] |
| Prof S. F. B. Morse | [89] |
| O. S. Wood | [165] |
| Sir Hugh Allan | [167] |
| James Dakers | [169] |
| H. P. Dwight | [172] |
| Wm. Cassils | [174] |
| James Poustie | [176] |
| Charles R. Hosmer | [178] |
| Hon. Geo. A. Cox | [180] |
| Sir W. C. Van Horne | [182] |
| Andrew Carnegie | [184] |
| Sir Sandford Fleming | [186] |
| F. N. Gisborne | [190] |
| Thos. A. Edison | [192] |
| Isaac D. Purkis | [195] |
| Cyrus W. Field | [223] |
| Michael Faraday | [226] |
| Lord Kelvin | [229] |
| Signor Marconi | [233] |
| SS. Parisian | [260] |
A Story of
The Telegraph
Telegraph History
Telegraph, a machine for communicating intelligence to a distance, usually by means of preconcerted signals to which some convenient meaning is attached.
The name Semiphore was also applied to some of the machines used for effecting telegraphic communication, which in an extended sense may be considered to embrace every means of conveying intelligence by gestures and visible signs, as flags, lanterns, rockets, blue lights, beacon fires, etc., or by audible signals as the firing of guns, the blowing of trumpets, the beating of drums or gongs, as well as by the machine specially provided for the purpose.
Although telegraph communication as a means of conveying any required intelligence is an invention of recent date, the use of signals for the speedy transmission of messages as might be previously arranged between persons is a practice derived from the most remote antiquity. The use of beacon fires for example, as a means of giving warning of the approach of an enemy, is alluded to by the Prophet Jeremiah, who wrote about six centuries before the Christian era, and who warns the Benjamites to set up a sign of fire in Beth-Haccerem, for evil appeareth out of the north and great destruction (Jeremiah VI., 1).
The fine description given by Acchylus in his Agamemnon, of the application of a line of fire signals to communicate the intelligence of the fall of Troy is often referred to as an early instance of this kind of telegraphic dispatch.
This simple means of spreading an alarm, or communicating intelligence, is described by Scott in the “Lay of the Last Minstrel,” and in a note he refers to an act of the Scottish Parliament in 1455, c. 48, which directs that one bale or faggot shall be the warning of the approach of the English in any manner, two bales, that they are coming indeed, and four bales blazing beside each other that the enemy are in great force.
Such signals though best adapted to give information by night, were also available in day time, when they appeared as dense columns of smoke.
Torches held in the hand and moved in any particular manner, or alternately displayed and hidden behind a screen, were also used in ancient times as signals.
A night telegraph contrived by the Rev. James Bremner, of the Shetland Islands, and rewarded by the Society of Arts in 1816.
A single light constitutes the whole apparatus and the whole operation consists in its alternate exhibition and concealment. This plan had been found suitable for distances of twenty miles and upwards, and had been successfully put in operation between the light-house on Copeland Island and Port Patrick, on the opposite side of the Irish Channel.
Telegraph Electric
The attempts to render one or other of the phenomena of electricity subservient to the purposes of telegraphy have been numerous. From the earliest date, which we can assign to the existence of an electric telegraph, its essential parts have been the same. There are: 1st, the source of electrical power; 2nd, the conducting material by which this power is enabled to travel to the required locality; and, 3rd, the apparatus by which at the distant end of the line the existence of this power, its amount or the direction of its action is made known to the observer.
In the earlier stages of the invention, the investigations of its promoters were confined to the last of these three essentials, and, so long as the illustration of the idea was confined to the lecture table, this part claimed pre-eminence, but with the proposed application to purposes of general utility there arose the necessity for an equal degree of attention to the two former requisites.
The experiments of Dr. Watson, in England, in 1747, and of Franklin, in 1748, on the banks of the Schuylkill river may have suggested the conveyance of information by means of electricity.
The earliest authenticated instance of any attempt to reduce this to practice appears to have been that of Lesage, of Geneva, in 1774, and of Lomond, in France, in 1787, they employed as an indicator a pair of pith balls suspended from one end of an insulated wire, and at the other end of which was the operator provided with an electric machine, on charging the wire with electricity, the pith balls would exercise mutual repulsion and divergence from one another, but on removing the electrical charge from the wire by the contact of some conductor the balls would collapse.
It is evident that certain numbers of successive divergences might be made to denote particular preconcerted signals.
Subsequently to this the phenomena of the spark, as seen on the passage of electricity through an uninterrupted conductor, was used for the transmission of signals, were the various letters of the alphabet formed in this manner upon a table and connected with each one with a distinct and insulated wire and a particular letter might be rendered visible in a darkened room by passing an electric charge through the appropriate wire, this in fact constituted the telegraph of Reusser or Reiser invented in 1794.
Retancourt and Dr. Salva, in 1798, appear to have made experiments on the transmission of the charge through wires of great length.
A somewhat similar form of apparatus involving the same principle was constructed by arranging the several wires in succession with a single break in each. The various wires bore the names of the different letters or figures, and any required signal was indicated by passing the charge through the proper wire, when the spark visible at the interruption of the circuit would denote the letter to the observer at the farther end. This was the point to which invention had advanced at the commencement of the nineteenth century.
The discovery of Volta in 1800, of the Pile, which bears his name forms the commencement of a new era in electric telegraphs. Although there was no immediate application of the phenomena of the galvanic current to the purpose, indeed several important discoveries had to be made before an electric telegraph of any value was possible.
In 1807 Sommering, at Munich, proposed to construct an electric telegraph on the principle of the decomposition of water, by the Voltaic current discovered in 1800, by Nicholson and Carlisle. The form of apparatus was the following:
In a glass trough containing water, thirty-five gold pegs or pins were arranged vertically, this number of pegs corresponding to the letters of the alphabet together with the nine digits; each of those pins was connected by a wire which extended to the place whence the signal was to be transmitted; at this point they terminated in brass strips arranged in a frame side by side, but like the wires and pins insulated from each other, each brass strip bore the name of the letter or figure which belonged to the pin to which it was connected. The operator, when wishing to send any communication, connected the two poles of the battery with the brass strips bearing the names of the two first letters required—decomposition of the water in the trough at the distant end was instantly indicated by the evolution of bubbles of gas from the two gold pins which thus became the two electrodes or poles of the battery. The letters forming any communication were to be in this manner denoted in pairs, the inventor ingeniously availing himself of the different quantities of the two gases, evolved to point out the relative position of the letters in each pair, the hydrogen being employed to indicate the first letter.
Schweigger proposed to add to this system a plan for calling the attention of the correspondent at the distant station by the discharge by the current of a pistol charged with the mixed gases.
In 1816 Mr. Ronalds, of Hammersmith, invented an electric telegraph in which the use of frictional electricity was recurred to.
This telegraph, which was shown to several scientific men at the date above given, was fully described by the inventor by a work published by him in 1823.
Mr. Ronalds employed the divergence and collapse of a pair of pith balls as the telegraphic indication in which respect the principle was the same as that adopted by Mr. Lomond, but to this simple apparatus a distinct contrivance was appended in order to render the communication more rapid and easy.
A single wire, perfectly insulated by being suspended by silken strings, or buried in glass tubes, surrounded by pitch and protected by wooden troughs, was extended between the stations; from the end of this wire was suspended in front of the dial of a clock, a pair of pith balls so that whilst the wire was charged the balls would remain divergent, but would instantly collapse when the wire by contact with the earth, or with the hand of the operator was discharged.
A person at one end having, therefore, an electrical machine, by which he could maintain the wire in an electrified state and the pith balls at the other extremity, consequently, in a state of divergence, had it, of course, in his power to give an instantaneous indication to the observer at that farther extremity by touching the wire with the hand, which, discharging the electricity, would allow the balls to collapse for an instant; but instead of merely employing the successive movements of the pith balls to denote the various signals, Mr. Ronalds added another apparatus for the purpose.
Two clocks, very accurately adjusted to the same rate of going, carried, instead of the ordinary seconds hands, light discs, on which the various letters of the alphabet, the figures and other required signals were engraved. These discs turned with a regular step-by-step movement behind a screen of metal in which was made a small opening, sufficient to allow one letter at a time being seen. As the discs turned round each letter in succession would be visible through this space, and it is evident that if the clocks started with the same signal visible, the movement of the discs would bring similar signals into view at the same time.
One of these instruments was situated at each end of the communicating wire.
The operator who was about to transmit any communication watched the dial of his clock until the letter he required was visible and at that instant discharged the wire; the momentary collapse of the balls at the distant end would then warn the observer to note the letter visible on his instrument which would form a part of the intelligence to be received, the successive letters or signals constituting any messages were denoted in this manner, as the clock dials continued to turn round.
In order to avoid the constant attention on the part of the observer an arrangement was adopted by which a pistol could be fired by the spark of the further end to summon the attendant to his instrument.
Various signals were also concerted before hand, by the use of which the time necessary for the transmission of any intelligence was lessened.
These experiments of Mr. Ronalds were made with the intervention of several miles of wire carried backward and forward across his grounds.
In 1819 Professor Oersted, of Copenhagen, made his great discovery of the action of the galvanic current upon a magnetic needle; he observed that when a current is passed along a wire placed parallel and near a magnetic needle free to turn on its centre, the needle is deflected to one side or the other according to the direction in which the current is transmitted.
He further noticed that the position of the wire, whether above or below the needle, had an equal influence with the direction of the current in determining the side to which the deflection took place. The power of a single wire in causing this deviation of a needle is but small, but this was remedied by the invention of the multiplier or galvanometer by Prof. Schweigger, in which the needle being surrounded with many successive coils of insulated wire, is acted upon by the joint force of all. Under a somewhat different form this discovery now forms the basis of the needle electric telegraph.
Very shortly after this important discovery had been made, Arago and Ampère, in France, and Seebeck, in Berlin, succeeded in rendering iron magnetic by the passage of a galvanic current through a wire coiled around the iron, and Sturgeon, in England, produced the first electro-magnet. It was found that provided the iron to be magnetized were perfectly soft and pure, the magnetic property remained only during the actual transmission of the electricity, and was lost immediately on the interruption of the electric current.
If the iron which was exposed to the influence of the galvanic current were combined with sulphur, carbon or phosphorus, the magnetic power became to a greater or less extent permanent in it.
The invention of the Voltaic battery, of the deflection of the needle, and of the magnetization of soft iron, formed the three great steps in the history of the electric telegraph.
M. Ampère suggested the employment of the discovery of Oersted as early as 1830, and this suggestion was acted upon by Prof. Ritchie, in a model telegraph exhibited by him at the Royal Institution.
Ampère’s plan, however, was far from possessing the simplicity so essential to an instrument designed for practical use; not less than thirty pairs of conducting wires were necessary according to his scheme for maintaining a telegraph communication.
Baron Schilling in 1832 and 1833, following the idea originated by Ampère, proposed a similar form of telegraph in which there were as many of these galvanometers, each with its appropriate circuit, as there were letters or signs to be used in the various communications, in fact, there were 30 needles and 72 wires.
In 1833 Gauss and Weber proposed to employ the separate movements of a suspended bar as signals, but its indication must have been feeble as they had to be observed through a telescope placed at some distance from the oscillating bar.
In 1837 M. Alexander exhibited a model of a proposed form of telegraph containing twenty-five needles to be acted upon as in Ampère’s arrangement.
In this instrument a distinct needle was employed for the indication of each letter, these needles bearing at one end light screens of paper which concealed from view a letter or figure until by the deflection of the needle the screen was removed, and the letter brought into sight.
M. Alexander, however, effected one great improvement in substituting a single wire to which one end of all the coils was joined for the several return wires existing in the previous invention of M. Schilling.
At a later period this gentleman undertook a series of experiments with a view to the establishment of a communication by means of a single wire, but some mechanical difficulties appear to have arrested his progress.
In both of these telegraphs, all that was required in addition to the indicating apparatus and conducting wires, was a contrivance by which the connection of the Voltaic batteries could be made with any pair of wires, in the former, and with any single wire and the return conductor in the latter of the two inventions. One pole of the battery being connected to the return or common wire, the other pole of the battery was joined to a plate of metal, or to a trough of mercury, extending beneath all the keys. On depressing any key the wire belonging to it, which was continued to the end over the battery connection, was brought into contact with this bar or trough. The current would then flow along the conducting wire, around the multiplier coil in the distant instrument, and return by the common wire to the Voltaic battery. The keys bore the same letters as the needles to which they were connected, so that the operator communicated any letter by pressing down the corresponding key.
In these two instruments, no use was made of the power which exists of determining the deflection of the needle to either side by merely reversing the connections of the battery.
We have thus traced the history of the telegraph up to the point at which it first assumed the practical form of Cooke and Wheatstone’s inventions, but what had been accomplished remained either unknown, or was known only to a few leading men of science, until the unexpected development of the electric telegraph in the hands of these gentlemen led each one who was in possession of any title to the merit of having believed in and experimented upon the possibility to produce his title, or to have it eagerly put forward by his friends and fellow countrymen.
Although the principal facts necessary to the construction of an electric telegraph had been known ever since 1821, yet it was not until the general establishment of railways that telegraph wires could be safely carried to any great distance.
Moreover, the importance of the invention was by no means understood.
In 1837 the experiments of Cooke and Wheatstone, which had been progressing for more than a twelvemonth, appeared so far successful as to induce them to apply for a patent for their inventions.
The instrument which was brought into use on the Great Western Railway shortly after the date of the patent, contained five needles, arranged with their axis in a horizontal line. The needles when at rest hung vertically, by reason of a slight preponderence given to the lower ends, each coil was connected with one of the long conducting wires at one end, and was united at the other, with a rod of metal, which joined together the similar ends of all the coils.
The current was transmitted from the opposite end of the wires where a set of five pair of finger keys for making the connections with the battery was placed through two of the wires at once, that is to say, of the wire of which one key was pressed down, served to convey the current from one pole of the battery to the distant instrument, while the key of a second wire being brought into contact with the other pole, the current returned by the rod of metal connecting the coils, and the second wire to the battery again.
Two needles were in this manner deflected at once, and it will be obvious, that the current would pass in opposite directions around their coils, and, consequently, that the deflection must be in contrary directions. The needles would, therefore, converge either above or below their line of centre as one or other of the pair of keys belonging to each wire was depressed, fixed stops were so placed on each side of the needles, as to limit their motion and when resting against them the needles were parallel to two converging lines, at the point of intersection of movement of the needles.
In a similar manner as lines were drawn diverging from the centre of each axis mutually crossing one another, a number of points of intersection were formed at each of which was a letter or signal. Any of these letters could be indicated by the simultaneous movement of two needles, so that a communication could be carried on with certainty and tolerable rapidity, at the same time a plan was recognized by which the number of wires requisite for maintaining a communication might be reduced by using one of them at times as a return wire only, there being no needle in connection with this one.
One needle could, by the use of this wire, be deflected by itself, either to the right, or to the left, and thus, of course, each would furnish two signals in addition to those formed by its simultaneous deflection by any other. The instruments at the two stations were always rendered reciprocating; that is, at each end of the line were placed at each instrument a set of finger keys and a Voltaic battery, so that either station could transmit, or receive a signal by an ingenious arrangement. The keys on being released after depression, were made to resume by themselves the position necessary to enable that which had been the signalling station to become the recipient; by this means messages and answers or words and their acknowledgment could follow one another without the necessity for any intervening adjustment of the instruments.
The bell or alarum which was to be rung, when the attention of the clerk at the distant end was required, was either direct or indirect in its action.
In the first case, the attraction exercised by a horseshoe-shaped piece of soft iron, rendered temporarily magnetic by the galvanic current, was made to draw an armature likewise of soft iron towards it, and by this action impel a small hammer against a bell.
In the second form of alarum the movement of the armature merely released a detent or catch from a train of clock work driven by a spring or weight. This clock work by the intervention of a scape wheel and pallets rang the bell as in a common alarum.
In April, 1838, Mr. Cooke obtained a patent for some further improvements in this apparatus.
The electric telegraph invented by Prof. Morse, of the United States, has led to a large amount of controversy, a claim having been put in for him as the first actual invention of a practical electric telegraph in 1832, while on board the packetship “Sully.”
The Abbe Moigne states that a Mr. Jackson wrote to the Academie Française, affirming that he had in 1832 communicated the plan to Mr. Morse while returning together from Europe to America on board the “Sully.”
Even admitting, however, the claim of either party, it would only show that they did not think sufficiently well of their scheme to enter upon it until nearly three months after the first English patent for an electric telegraph had been sealed and the practicability of such an apparatus had been demonstrated in England.
The first really official letter on the subject from Prof. Morse is dated September 27, 1837.
Cooke and Wheatstone’s first patent for an electric telegraph was sealed three months before this, namely, on June 12, 1837.
The difference between this telegraph and the preceding, in suggestions and contrivances, was very great. The experiments of these gentlemen had been proceeding for a long time previously, so that when in June, 1837, their patent was obtained, it was not for an arrangement of doubtful practicability, or of a form to be perfected only after repeated trial; on the contrary, it was within a few months after the date of the patent put up and brought into actual and daily use.
Some of its details have since been simplified, and the modes in which the electric needles are made to give the required indications have been greatly varied, but the great features and principles of their first invention remain unchanged, and not only so, but they form an essential part of nearly, if not quite all, the later telegraphs of other inventors.
The invention of an electric telegraph should have attracted the immediate attention of railway managers, one would naturally suppose; on the contrary, railway directors looked upon it as a new-fangled invention, and the public was not yet alive to its innumerable advantages. One fact, however, must be insisted on and is now a matter of history—that to England belongs the honor of this great invention; that in the year 1837, a needle telegraph had been invented so complete, and at the same time so simple in its operations, that it could be worked by any one who knew how to read; that in June of that year the patent for this telegraph had been sealed, and a month later the wires were laid down between Euston Square and Camdentown Stations of the North Western Railway, a distance of a mile and a quarter, and that on the 25th of July messages were actually sent between these two stations, Prof. Wheatstone being in the Euston Square Station, and Mr. Cooke being in that at Camdentown, the witnesses being the engineers, Messrs. Fox and Stephenson.
Now, it is quite true that Arago claimed before the French Academy of Sciences for Mr. Steinheil the precedence in this matter, inasmuch as he had his telegraph in operation on the 19th of July, 1837; but it must be remembered that Wheatstone’s patent was taken out in June of that year, and was publicly shown on numerous previous experiments, all of which were successful, whereas Mr. Steinheil published no description of his instrument until August, 1838, and it is admitted that in the interval he had altered and amended his instrument and soon after abandoned it for a modification of one by Morse.
In September, 1837, he exhibited an imperfect instrument, although he afterwards succeeded in producing one of first rate excellence, which is still largely used in the United States.
Cooke and Wheatstone received notice to quit the London and Birmingham line, but Mr. Brunel gave them permission, in 1839, to lay it down on the Great Western Railway. This was first done as far as West Drayton, 13 miles, and afterwards extended to Slough, 18 miles, the wires in both of these preliminary trials being enclosed in iron tubes laid on the ground.
On proposing to extend this line to Bristol much opposition was offered by the directors, and the telegraph again had notice to quit, but on the proposal of Mr. Cooke to retain the wires at his own expense, he was permitted to do so on condition of transmitting the Railway signals free of charge, and of extending the line to Slough. In return for this favor, he was allowed to transmit messages for the public, which was accordingly done, one shilling being charged for a message, but the public did not avail themselves of the new instrument, and its value was scarcely appreciated until the 3rd of January, 1845, when it was used to convey a message to London police, directing them to arrest one Towell, on a charge of murder. The message flashed past the criminal while he was travelling express to escape the consequence of his crime.
By the end of 1845 upwards of 500 miles of line were in operation in England.
In 1846 the Electric Telegraph Company commenced its operations with a considerable capital, a large portion of which was expended in the purchase of Wheatstone and Cooke’s patents, and the system which they had introduced became rapidly extended.
In due time other telegraph companies were competing with the original company, namely, the Electric & International Telegraph Company, and the London & Provincial Telegraph Co. The system spread over Europe and soon no railway was deemed complete without its telegraph wires.
On the 5th of February, 1870, the Monopoly conferred upon the postmaster general, by the telegraph act of the previous year, took effect when the Post-Office assumed control of telegraph communication within the United Kingdom, and it then became possible to send telegrams throughout the country at a uniform charge irrespective of locality or distance.
The purchase money paid to the telegraph companies, compensation to railway companies for their interest in the telegraph business and the expense of new lines amounted to upwards of ten millions sterling.
On the day of the transfer a thousand post-offices and nineteen hundred railway stations were opened as telegraph offices. The public at once showed their appreciation of the change.
In the year 1869 but seven millions of telegrams passed on the companies wires; in 1870 the postmaster general transmitted ten millions.
In 1885 the sixpenny telegrams were introduced. The charge for a written telegram, which came into force in 1870, was one shilling for the first twenty words, and threepence for every additional five words, the addresses of sender and receiver being sent free.
In 1885 the charge was reduced to a half-penny a word throughout including addresses (a system of abbreviated addresses, which could be registered on payment of a guinea a year, was introduced), with a minimum charge of sixpence; the effect of this reduction was to run the number of telegrams in two years from thirty-three to fifty millions.
During the first six months the number of telegrams increased by 48 per cent., while the gross telegraph revenue fell off to the extent of £40,233 though £18,124 had been received in respect to abbreviated addresses.
In April, 1886, the telegrams in excess of 1885 amounted to 40 per cent., but the revenue was £11,800 less. In May the increase in telegrams was 51 per cent. and the revenue £4,100 less than the previous May.
In June the increase was 61 per cent. and the revenue £2,800 less. The working expenses were thus increased, while the receipts were diminished. In London alone the receipts fell off by as much as 74 per cent. The principal reasons for the unfavorable financial results of the working of the telegraph are: the large price £10,130,000 expended as purchase money, an argument of little weight so long as working expenses are not paid; the right accorded to railway companies at the time of the transfer of sending postal telegrams free of all charge. The number of these telegrams, at first insignificant, reached a total of 1,600,000 in 1891, with an average length of 25 words, representing a value of £80,000 a year. Arrangements were afterwards made under which the companies would surrender this privilege in return for permission to send a fixed number of free telegrams in the course of the year.
The loss on press telegrams, to quote the forty-first report of the postmaster general: “A still more serious burden is caused by the loss on press telegrams.”
The charge specified in the Telegraph Act of 1868 for press telegrams is one shilling for 75 words during the day, or one hundred words at night, but a proviso was added that for copies only 2d per 75 words in the day or 100 at night, and no condition was laid down as to the copy being for the same town as the original; the newspaper, accordingly, combined to receive from the news associations messages in identical terms, and by dividing the cost they are enabled to get the benefit of a rate which comes nearer 2d than a shilling, the average charge being in fact about four pence half-penny per 100 words.
Notwithstanding the economical arrangements which have been made for the transmission of press telegrams, 5,400,000 in number containing 650,000,000 words, the loss incurred by the Post-Office in dealing with them is estimated to amount to £300,000 per annum.
The reductions in the tariff, especially in 1885 and 1897, and the competition of the telephone (upwards of 450,000,000 messages a year, transmitted by the National Telephone Company alone), though it must be remembered that the Royalties of the companies exceeded £100,000 per annum, which figure among the receipts of the Post-Office telegraph service. The increased wages paid to telegraphists in 1880 and 1881, the wages and salaries represented 44 per cent. of the total revenue; they now exceed 66 per cent. The real success of the state administration of the telegraph lies not in any contribution to the revenue, but in cheap telegrams and a large use of the service.
The average price of the ordinary inland telegram is sevenpence, three farthings, and there are more telegrams sent in the United Kingdom, both positively and relatively than in any other country, with the possible exception of the United States.
For every 100 persons there are sent in the United Kingdom 184 telegrams, while in France there are but 108 and in Germany 66.
In 1901 the gross revenue was £3,380,589. The pay of a telegraphist in London rises to £160 a year, with the prospect of promotion to higher positions.
The number of telegrams transmitted in 1900–1 was 89,576,000.
In small towns and villages where the traffic is light, and a skilled telegraphist is unnecessary, the Wheatstone A. B. C. instrument is used; in this apparatus electric currents are generated by turning a handle (placed in front of the instrument) which is geared to a Siemens shuttle armature placed between the two arms of a powerful horseshoe magnet; when one of a series of keys (each corresponding to a letter), arranged around a pointer, is depressed, motion of the pointer which is geared to the shuttle armature is arrested on coming opposite that particular key and the transmission of the currents to line is stopped, though the armature itself can continue to rotate. The depression of a second key causes the first key to be raised, the currents actuate a ratchet wheel mechanism at the receiving station, whereby the hand on a small dial is moved on letter by letter.
At offices where the work is heavier than can be dealt with by the A.B.C. apparatus, the single needle instrument is very largely used.
It has the advantage of slight liability to derangement and of requiring very little adjustment. A fairly skilled operator can signal with it at the rate of twenty words a minute.
The needle (in the modern pattern) is of soft iron and is kept magnetized inductively by the action of two permanent steel magnets. The coils are wound with copper wire (covered with silk) to a total resistance of 200 ohms. The actual current required to work the instrument is 3-3 milliampères equivalent approximately to the current given by one Daniel cell through 3,300 ohms, but in practice a current of 10 milliampères is allowed.
A single but important addition to enable the reading from the instrument to be effected by sound, in this arrangement the needle strikes against small tubes formed of tin plate and by this means the movement of the needle to the right or left is quite audible.
The Wheatstone automatic apparatus is largely used, especially for press matter; through it a speed of 600 letters per minute can be obtained.
In the Rowland multiple method, the transmitter consists of a mechanical key board, provided with a series of levers which effect certain combinations of positive and negative currents for each letter: these currents are furnished by an alternator, which transmits sine currents over the line, both machines running in synchronism.
At the receiving end of the circuit a shaft is coupled to the motor; this is provided with gearing which rotates four combining commutators and four type wheels, which print the letters on the band of paper. There are four transmitters and four receivers, which are operated independently by means of an adaptation of the multiplex system of working, and each circuit is provided with a number of segments set apart for its own use. Each transmitter is, therefore, able to transmit a separate series of positive and negative currents in different combinations; these are distributed by suitably arranged distributors and relays at the receiving end of the line into their respective receivers. The function of the “combiner” in each receiving instrument is to group the received combinations of positive and negative currents that they operate polarized relays in such a manner that the position of the tongues corresponds with the operation of the levers in the transmitter, since each letter is represented by a specific combination of positive and negative currents.
It is possible by means of the combinations to close a local circuit at any given interval and so cause the paper to be pressed against the periphery of the type wheel at the time when the letter required is opposite.
The paper is also caused to advance automatically for each letter, start a first line, and also to commence a fresh form at the completion of each message.
The Delaney Multiples System, which has been adopted to a limited extent in Great Britain, enables a large amount of work to be done on one wire.
Between London and Manchester four sets of the apparatus can be worked, but between London and Birmingham, a shorter distance, six sets (the maximum for which the system is adopted) may be used.
Sir William Fothergill Cooke,
1806–1879.
Son of William Cooke, M.D., Durham, was born at Ealing, Middlesex, and having received his education at Durham, was appointed in 1826 to the East Indian army, in which he held various staff appointments till 1831.
On his return home he devoted his time to the study of anatomy and physiology at Paris and Heidleberg and to modelling anatomical dissections for the illustration of his father’s lectures at Durham University.
In March, 1836, he began to direct his attention to the electric telegraph, with which he occupied himself exclusively for many years.
He entered into partnership with Prof. Wheatstone, and formed in conjunction with Mr. Ricardo, M.P., the first telegraph company of which he became a director.
The first telegraph line in England was constructed by Mr. Cooke, from Paddington to West Drayton, on the Great Western Railway in 1837.
In 1840 he established the telegraph on the Blackwall Railway, and in 1841 a short line from the Queen Street station, at Glasgow, through the tunnel to the engine house at Cowlairs on the railway to Edinburgh.
In 1842 the line from West Drayton was continued to Slough, and in 1843 two short lines were made in Ireland and in England, one of considerable length from London to Portsmouth for Government.
In 1867 he received the fourth Royal Albert medal, his name being preceded by Faraday’s, for the first introduction of a practical electric telegraph.
Her Majesty conferred on him the honor of Knighthood, November 11, 1869, as a recognition of his great and special services in connection with the electric telegraph, and on July 25, 1871, conferred on him a civil pension of £100.
Sir Charles Wheatstone, F.R.S., D.C.L., LL.D.
1802–1875
Who, together with Sir W. F. Cooke, introduced and carried out practical electric telegraphy, was the son of Mr. Wheatstone, of Gloucester, at which place he was born.
He was educated at a private school and brought up to the business of making musical instruments, which turned his attention to acoustics.
He published his first work in 1823, “New Experiments in Sound,” and having studied Young’s theory of light, the results of his investigations were communicated to the Royal Society through Faraday, in 1833.
In the following year he was appointed Professor of Experimental Philosophy, at King’s College, London.
He was made F. R. S. in 1836, and two years later described the stereoscope, which he had invented, in a paper which he read before the Society.
Mr. Cooke (later Sir W. F. Cooke), was introduced to Professor Wheatstone, and they decided to unite their efforts to introduce the use of the telegraph on a large scale in England.
They took out their first patent for the electric telegraph laid on the Blackwall Railway in 1837.
Wheatstone received the Royal Medal in 1840, the Copley Medal in 1843, was one of the Jurors at the Paris Exhibition (1855), when he received the decoration of the Legion of Honor, and was knighted in 1868.
He was corresponding member of the principal academies of science in Europe.
It was by his skill in turning knowledge to practical account that Wheatstone gave the electric telegraph the character which it now possesses. Though his inventions in other branches of science are as numerous as they are various, yet it is in connection with the electric telegraph that the name of Wheatstone will live.
He was the inventor of the telegraph, indeed. No one else can lay claim to that title.
Stephen Gray, in 1827, suspended a wire, seven hundred feet long, on silk threads, and on applying an excited glass tube to one end, electrification was observed at the other, but he did not send messages. Advances were made from that time by many men of science, who saw more or less clearly the great possibilities before them.
Omitting the pioneer claims of Sommering, Lomond and others of the last century, the names connected with the early development of the practical telegraph are Froment in France, Gauss, Weber and Steinheil, in Germany, Sir Francis Ronalds and Edward Davy, in England, Morse and Vail, in America. But to Wheatstone and his co-adjutor Sir William Fothergill Cooke is due the merit of having been the first to render it available for the public transmission of messages.
In 1834, shortly after being appointed Professor of Experimental Physics at King’s College, London, Wheatstone began experimenting on rate of transmission electricity along wires. For this purpose about half a mile of copper wire was insulated by suspension in the vaults under the college, and three interruptions of this circuit was made by three parts of brass knobs with a small interval between them, one of these interruptions was in the middle point of the conductor and the other two near the ends.
A leyden jar was discharged through the wire and the interval of time between the occurrence of the sparks at the ends and occurrence of the spark at the middle was measured by noting the displacement of the image of the middle spark in a mirror revolving at a known speed. It was calculated from results of this experiment that the velocity of an electric disturbance along a wire was about two hundred and fifty thousand miles per second, a result differing from the true speed of one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second; not very widely, considering the difficulties of observation in an experiment of this kind. From this research he passed on to the transmission of messages by electricity, and in conjunction with Cooke he elaborated the five needle telegraph, the first that came into general use.
Wheatstone’s fertility of scientific resource led the partners on to many new developments.
The letter showing dial telegraph in 1841 and the magneto-electro dial telegraph, a subsequent extension of the same to type embossing, and lastly the automatic transmitting and receiving instruments by which messages are sent with such great rapidity.
He was the first to appreciate the importance of reducing to a minimum the amount of work to be done by the current at the receiving station by diminishing as far as practicable the mass and therefore the inertia of the moving parts.
This was beautifully exemplified in that marvel of ingenuity, the magneto-electro letter showing telegraph, which was particularly applicable for private telegraph uses.
From 1837 Wheatstone appears to have devoted a good deal of time to submarine telegraphy, and in 1844 experiments were made in Swansea bay with the assistance of Mr. J. D. Llewellyn.
Wheatstone also had a share in the perfecting of the magneto-electric machines which have culminated in the modern dynamo.
In 1837 he devised a method of combining several armatures on one shaft so as to generate currents which were continuous instead of intermittent, and in 1867 he described to the Royal Society a method of making such machines self-exciting as to their magnetism by the use of a shunt circuit.
The use of a main circuit for the purpose had been described by Werner Siemens one month earlier, but the machine described by Wheatstone had been constructed for him by Mr. Stroh in the preceding summer.
Wheatstone was also the inventor of electro-magnetic clocks for indicating time at any number of different places united on a circuit.
It was he who called attention to Christy’s combination of wires, now commonly known as Wheatstone’s bridge—in which an electric balancing of the currents is obtained and worked out in its applications to electrical measurements.
He was one of the first in Great Britain to appreciate the importance of ohms simple law of the relation between electro-motive force resistance of conductors and resulting current—the law which is to-day the foundation of all electrical engineering.
Wheatstone contributed to numerous scientific journals and publications.
All his published papers were collected in 1879 by the Physical Society of London.
The Telegraph in America
Mr. Morse, the inventor of the telegraph system which bears his name, first conceived the idea on board the packet ship “Sully” on which he was a passenger. He sailed from Havre for New York on the first day of October, 1832. He was accompanied by a number of others, the whole company being unusually intelligent and agreeable. There was a long voyage before them, and each amiably undertook to relieve the tedium of the journey by the many pleasant devices indulged in by companionable travellers.
At an early period of the voyage, the conversation around the evening table turned upon the subject of electricity and magnetism which was then a popular topic of discussion and general interest.
One of the passengers (a Doctor Jackson) introduced the subject by reference to lectures to which he had recently attended while in Paris, in which interesting illustrations of the more recent discoveries in electro-magnetism had been given.
He also referred to the experiments of Ampère with the electro magnet; the subject excited very general interest into which Morse entered with great spirit. Hitherto he had felt no other concern in electrical matters than that of a lively and attentive curiosity.
Dr. Jackson had in his trunk an electro-magnet, which he described, and during the conversation alluded to the length of the wire in the coils. This led one of the company to enquire “if the velocity of the current was retarded by the length of the wire?”
Dr. Jackson replied that electricity passed instantaneously over any known length of wire. This aroused the interest of Morse who was struck with the idea that electricity might be made the medium of conveying intelligence.
The conversation went on but he left them. As he paced the deck the idea rapidly took form in his mind that, either by electro-chemical or electro-magnetic effects of a current, marks might be made at distances so great and in such variety as to render possible the easy communication of and record of an intelligible language.
This was, so far as he knew at the time, a new thought. Gradually the conception took shape and system until at last it had assumed such a form that next morning, at the breakfast table, he communicated the plan by which he believed a recording telegraph could be serviceable.
Later on as the voyage was nearing its end, Mr. Morse, addressing the Captain, said “Well, Captain, should you hear of the telegraph one of these days as the wonder of the world, remember the discovery was made on board the good ship “Sully.”
He would now have devoted himself entirely to the elaboration of this new thought, but he had to betake himself to his work as an artist. He was poor and for three or four years following his return he had to travel much of the time to meet engagements in connection with his profession. Meanwhile, he devoted every spare moment to the perfecting of his apparatus.
In a letter to a friend Mr. Morse wrote: “Up to the autumn of 1837, my telegraphic apparatus existed in so crude a form that I felt reluctant to have it seen. My means were very limited—so limited as to preclude the possibility of constructing an apparatus of such mechanical finish as to warrant my success in venturing upon its public exhibition. I had no wish to expose to ridicule the representative of so many hours of laborious thought. Prior to the summer of 1837, at which time Mr. Alfred Vail’s attention became attracted to my telegraph, I depended upon my pencil for my subsistence. Indeed, so straightened were my circumstances, that in order to save time to carry out my invention, and to economize my scanty means, I had for months lodged and eaten in my studio, procuring my food in small quantities from some grocery, and preparing it myself to conceal from my friends the stinted manner in which I lived. I was in the habit of bringing my food to my room in the evenings, and this was my mode of life for many years.”
Under these distressing circumstances, Mr. Morse labored in perfecting his apparatus in which he finally succeeded. His caveat was filed in the patent office in Washington on October 6, 1837, but a patent was not obtained until 1840.
On the 8th of February, 1838, in response to an invitation from the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, Prof. Morse exhibited the new telegraph before the Committee of Science and Arts of that institution, who reported their gratification and expressed their desire that government would give the means of testing it on an extensive scale.
Mr. Morse, shortly after this, exhibited his apparatus before the President and his cabinet, and which gave great satisfaction, in reference to which he wrote his friend and partner Mr. Alfred Vail, as follows: “Everything looks encouraging, but I need not say to you that in this world a continued course of prosperity is not a rational expectation. We shall doubtless find troubles and difficulties in store for us, and it is part of true wisdom to be prepared for whatever may await us. If our hearts are right, we shall not be taken by surprise. I see nothing now but an unclouded prospect, for which let us pay to Him who shows it to us, the homage of grateful and obedient hearts, with most earnest prayers for grace to use prosperity aright.”
Morse now determined to ask Congress for aid to make a thorough test of his apparatus on an actual line to show its capacity and practicability; in this he was encouraged by his friends. On December 6, 1842, he wrote an exhaustive letter to the Hon. C. G. Ferris, an influential member of the House Committee on Commerce, in which he gave a minute history of the invention, stated fully the basis of his claims as the inventor, and asked that through his committee an appeal might be made to Congress for the means to erect an experimental line to prove its value. In response to this the Hon. John P. Kennedy, February 23, 1843, offered a resolution “That the Bill appropriating thirty thousand dollars to be expended under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, in a series of experiments to test the expediency of the telegraph projected by Professor Morse should be passed.”
Mr. Morse sat in the gallery during the discussion which followed, a quiet but intensively anxious observer. For a time the project was made the subject of ridicule.
Irritated perhaps because the committee passed him in the control of the experiment, the Postmaster proposed to give half the sum appropriated by the bill to mesmeric experiments.
Another proposed that millerism have a share. The bill seemed doomed to failure by their ridicule. The debate became sharp and vigorous when, at length, the vote was taken with the result that the Bill passed by a majority of eight.
The bill, however, had yet to pass the Senate, and its temper respecting it was unknown. It had much unfinished business. Day after day passed, but the bill had not been reached. Finally the last hours of the session arrived.
Morse watched them as they passed with an anxious solicitude. It was getting late, ten o’clock had already struck, two hours only remained before the final adjournment. Just then the Hon. Fernando Wood, one of the Senators, came to Mr. Morse and advised him to go home. “The Senate is not in sympathy with your project. I advise you to give it up. Return home and think no more of it.” Morse, feeling it useless to remain longer, with a heavy heart went to his hotel, paid his bill, procured a ticket for New York and retired to his room for the night. He there knelt down, opened his heart to God and committed his affairs to Him. He had done all that he could and could do more.
He counted his money and found after paying his bill and ticket he had thirty-seven and a half cents left.
In the morning, refreshed by rest yet grave and thoughtful, he came down to breakfast. While seated at the table a visitor was announced. The early visitant proved to be a young lady friend, Miss Ellsworth, the daughter of the Commissioner of Patents, who taking him warmly by the hand, exclaimed with a voice of unconcealed joy, “Professor, I have come on purpose to congratulate you.” “Congratulate me! For what, my dear friend, can you offer me congratulations?” “Why,” she said gaily (as she enjoyed the Professor’s wondering surprise, and who was at the time not in the fittest mood for pleasantry), “on the passage of your bill. The Senate, last night, voted you your money, $30,000.”
She then informed him that her father remained in the Senate until the close of the session, and that in the very closing moments the telegraph bill was passed without division or debate. On reaching home, Ellsworth had communicated the news to his family, all of whom were much attached to the Professor, and his daughter begged the favor of being allowed to go to the hotel to communicate the good news.
It was the desire of a good warm-hearted woman. So she had hastened on her pleasant errand, and now, having told her story, she asked, “Am I really the first to communicate this to you?”
The tidings were so unexpected that for some moments he could make no reply. At length he said, “Yes, Annie, you are the first to inform me. I was until now utterly unconscious of the fact, and now I am going to make you a promise. When the line is completed, the first despatch sent upon it from Washington to Baltimore shall be yours.” “Well,” she replied, “I will hold you to your promise.”
All details having been arranged between the Government and Mr. Morse, the construction of the line was proceeded with. He was allowed a salary of $2,500 per annum during the test. Mr. Alfred Vail took charge of the machinery while Mr. Ezra Cornell was made Superintendent of construction.
It was most unfortunate for Mr. Morse that his mind from the very first seemed prepossessed in favor of underground lines which had been adopted in England. They gave to him the general impression of safety and permanence, and he selected the plan without experiment.
He had ordered to be made in New York forty miles of a five wire cable enclosed in lead, and Mr. Cornell invented a plow to make the trench for its reception.
This cable was laid from Baltimore to the Relay House, seven miles away, but on testing it the escape was found so great that the necessity of abandoning it became evident. More than half the appropriation had been expended. After much anxious thought, it was decided to place the wires on poles, and the line was finished in this way with two copper wires of size number 14, covered with cotton saturated with gum shellac.
The first insulation of the government line shows how crude and rudimentary was the conception held at that period. It was simply two plates of glass, between which the wire, after wrapping well with cloth saturated with gum shellac, was placed and over which a wooden cover to protect from rain and press the glass upon the wire and keep it in place was nailed.
These were afterwards removed and the Bureau Knob pattern substituted.
In about one year after the appropriation had been made, the line was completed.
The first telegraph office in Washington was in a small room on the east front of the Capitol, and afterwards in a room over the city post-office. The relays were of number 16 cotton covered copper wire saturated in gum shellac, each weighing about 510 pounds, and so coarsely constructed that Mr. Vail kept the ones in use in a back room where the operator had to run when it needed adjustment.
The battery consisted of 100 cells of Grove, which was renewed three times a week. The circuits were left open when the line was not in use, and the instruments were so connected that each operator started and stopped the instrument at the distant station by the dropping of a break upon the fly wheel when the manipulations of the keys were suspended.
The magnets were soon after greatly improved, reduced in size, and increased in power.
True to the promise he had made to his friend, Miss Ellsworth, Prof. Morse now sent for her and to which she at once responded.
She was invited to indicate a message for transmission. It was promptly done in language now historic and in consonance with the inventor’s own often expressed thoughts respecting the origin of his invention, indeed, he may have suggested the words “What hath God wrought.” This message was passed over the wires, and the strip of paper on which it was imprinted was given to Governor Seymour of Connecticut, as a souvenir in honor of the young woman who was a native of his State, and of the inventor who received therein his collegiate training.
An incident now brought the usefulness of the telegraph into public recognition.
The National Convention to nominate a President was in session at Baltimore. James K. Polk had been nominated President, and Silas Wright, then in the Senate, and in Washington at the time, as Vice-President. This was communicated over the wires. In a few minutes the convention was astonished to receive a message from Mr. Wright respectfully declining the nomination. The presiding officer read the despatch, but the convention could not or would not believe its authenticity, and adjourned to await the report of a committee sent to Washington to confer with that gentleman. The committee confirmed the telegraphic message. This fact soon became known when the fame of the telegraph at once took wing.
It is related that about this time that a prominent functionary asked an assistant “how large a bundle could be sent over the wires, and if the United States mails could not be sent in the same way!”
Some wag did straddle a pair of dirty boots over the wires and very seriously told an astonished citizen that they got dirty by coming so rapidly from Baltimore!
On the opening of the government line, Mr. O. E. Wood, at that time connected with the engineering department of the State of New York, was induced by his brother-in-law, Ezra Cornell, to give up his profession and join Mr. Morse at Washington. He then became Mr. Morse’s first pupil.
In November, 1844, he received over the wires from Baltimore the result of the Presidential elections in Northern and Eastern States, and with Mr. Vail spent the winter of 1844–45 in exhibiting the working of the telegraph to members of Congress, diplomatic representatives and to visitors attracted thither from all parts of the globe. He also transmitted to the Baltimore press a report of the proceedings of Congress for publication.
On April 1, 1845, the line, which had been worked as a curiosity, was thrown open for public business.
The operators appointed were Mr. Vail at Washington and Mr. Henry J. Rogers at Baltimore.
During the first four days the receipts amounted to one cent. This was obtained from an office seeker who said he had nothing less than a twenty dollar bill and one cent, and with the modesty of his class, wanted to witness the operations of the telegraph free, this was refused because against orders. He was told he could have a cent’s worth of telegraphy, to which he agreed, and he was gratified in the following manner:
Washington asked Baltimore “4” which meant in the list of signals “what time is it?” Baltimore replied “1,” which meant “one o’clock.” This was one character each way which would amount to half a cent. The man paid his one cent, magnanimously declined the change, and went his way satisfied.
This was the total revenue of four days.
On the 5th, twelve and a half cents; the sixth was the Sabbath; on the seventh the receipts ran up to sixty cents; on the eighth, to a dollar and thirty-two cents, and on the ninth, to a dollar and four cents. Not a very dazzling prospect certainly, yet watchful eyes saw its future value.
It is recorded that about this time a certain good dame, whose ideas of discipline were somewhat stern and fundamental, after surveying a pole recently planted near her door, placing her hands on her haunches, and looking critically at the pole, exclaimed, “Now I s’pose no one can spank their brats without bein’ known to the hull cree-a-tion!”
The telegraph was fairly under weigh. Prof. Morse offered to sell his rights to the Government for one hundred thousand dollars, but the Postmaster General was not satisfied. The operations of the telegraph between Washington and Baltimore had not shown him that, under any rate of postage that could be devised, its revenue could be made equal to its expenditure. The offer was therefore declined. This refusal was fortunate both for the inventor and the country.
The next move was to enlist private capital, and this was soon accomplished.
The first telegraph company in the United States, the “Magnetic Telegraph Company,” was formed, but this was not attained without difficulty.
Early in 1845 Mr. Kendall, formerly Postmaster General in President Jackson’s administration, was induced, after much deliberation and consultation, to take a leading part in organizing the Company.
It was thought expedient to make the first attempt to construct a line between New York and Philadelphia, and to limit the capital to the probable cost of that section, the traffic between these large cities being extensive, and likely to prove remunerative.
To aid in securing capital. Mr. Ezra Cornell and Mr. O. S. Wood went to New York to exhibit the telegraphic apparatus upon a short experimental line strung on the tops of buildings.
Offices were opened, one at 112 Broadway, and the other in a building near where the Metropolitan Hotel now stands. Permission to allow the connecting wires to be erected on the tops of houses was obtained with much trouble, and only after paying Prof. Silliman, Jr., a fee of fifty dollars for an expert opinion respecting its safety before the property owners would consent to the wires being erected.
The price of admission to witness the operation of the telegraph was twenty-five cents. This seemed a novel way to secure capital in a great city like New York.
With this embargo, notwithstanding the wonderful character of the invention, there was not visitors enough to pay expenses; everything indicated poverty. The exhibitors were so poor that one of them was glad to use a couple of common chairs for his nightly rest.
It was certainly a strange experience for the future princely founder of Cornell University, making his breakfast out of the proceeds of a shilling picked up, as it were, from the sidewalks of Broadway, and which, he said, were the best meals he had ever enjoyed.
The estimated cost of a line from Fort Lee on the Hudson to Philadelphia was $15,000—a modest sum to ask of the great city of New York, but the men of capital looked over their immaculate collars at the ticking machinery, and into the faces of the hungry exhibitors, and up at the wire straggling among the chimney pots, and then down at the meagre furniture, and said “No;” each man feared to be the first fool. But what capitalists would not do, humbler men did.
One of the first men in New York to invest his money in the new device was the keeper of an eating-house on Nassau Street, and who afterward became one of the directors.
The money needed was finally raised, but chiefly outside of New York. It was provided in this original subscription that the payment of fifty dollars should entitle the subscribers to two shares of fifty dollars each.
A payment of fifteen thousand dollars, therefore, required an issue of $30,000 stock. To the patentees was issued an additional $30,000 stock, or half of the capital, as a consideration of the patent; the capital was, therefore, $60,000 for the first link.
Trustees were appointed to hold the patent rights and property until the organization was effected.
The incorporators were:—
S. F. B. Morse,
B. B. French,
Geo. C. Penniman,
Henry J. Rogers,
John S. McKim,
J. T. Trimble,
W. M. Swain,
John O. Sterns,
A. Sydney Doane.