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.