The History of Telegraphs
- Samuel F.B. Morse worked with Alfred Vail to create an invention he dubbed the Recording Telegraph in 1832. The device is widely regarded as the first electromechanical telegraph and would be refined in Morse's offices until 1837, when he first filed a patent for the machine. The machine was powered by "intensity batteries," which sent electricity to the device over a wire.
The first telegraph transmitted messages through a code Morse invented. The code recorded long and short flows of electricity in a series of dashes and dots. In the year 1838, Morse formed a company around his invention and the newly created code. - Morse received funding from Congress in 1843 to demonstrate his invention by running a line between Washington and Baltimore. The first message was sent over the line on May 24, 1844 from the chambers of the U.S. Supreme Court. Morse's message to his partner Vail, who was in Baltimore, read "What hath God wrought!"
The telegraph was marketed in 1845 under the direction of Amos Kendall, a former postmaster general who had worked in the Andrew Jackson administration. Thus, the Magnetic Telegraph Co. was born. The telegraph became more widely known and soon more companies were formed in celebration of the device. - Morse's Magnetic Telegraph Co. built the first commercial telegraph line between Washington, D.C., and New York City in 1846. A line connecting New York City and Boston was added the same year by F.O.J. Smith. Both these lines used Morse's patent as a model, but his technology no longer stood alone in the market.
Rival technologies in the telegraph market began to emerge in the late 1840s. By the year 1851, more than 50 different telegraph companies were operating in the United States. - The smattering of telegraph companies soon created confusion, resulting in unreliable service. Hiram Sibley and Judge Samuel L. Selden had paired in 1849 to form the New York State Printing Telegraph Co., which used the House Telegraph patent that did not operate with Morse code. The two men chose not to create a new telegraph line; instead, they purchased other lines that had already been built west of Buffalo, New York. Their efforts led to the 1851 creation of the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Co. (NYMVPTC).
NYMVPTC continued to buy out rival systems, greatly expanding its interests in 1854. Sibley managed to purchase the Morse patent in 1854 and subsequently switched over to Morse's code system to transfer telegraph messages. In 1856, the company name was changed to Western Union Telegraph Co. To this day, Western Union remains one of the most well-known brands of sending a wire in the United States, though since 2006 the company provides only money-transfer services. - The Pacific Telegraph Act was signed into law by President James Buchanan in 1860. As a result, Hiram Sibley of Western Union won the contract to build a transcontinental telegraph line. In 1861, the line was completed and Sibley merged several new telegraph businesses into his company.
More mergers took place, until the number of separate telegraph companies began to dwindle. Several small outfits came together to form the American Telegraph Co. Another group of telegraph companies banded together in 1864 to become the U.S. Telegraph Co. Despite the mergers, Western Union continued to remain the largest and most dominant of telegraph companies in the United States. - New technologies began to emerge. Western Union used Duplex Telegraphy in 1871 to send two messages at once to two different locations, an innovation in its time. Soon, four messages were being sent at the same time thanks to an invention from Thomas Edison. More words were added to messages in 1883 thanks to an invention named Wheatstone's Automatic Telegraph. Machines soon appeared in the 1880s and 1890s which transcribed messages much more quickly and simply, so more telegraphs could be sent.
