Lab
Library
Journal
Shop
Sign in
to keep
Share image
1
281
Heroes of the Telegraph
·
John Munro
55
On
April
1,
1845,
the
Baltimore
to
Washington
line
was
formally
opened
for
public
business.
The
tariff
adopted
by
the
Postmaster-General
was
one
cent
for
every
four
characters,
and
the
receipts
of
the
first
four
days
were
a
single
cent.
At
the
end
of
a
week
they
had
risen
to
about
a
dollar.
Morse
offered
the
invention
to
the
Government
for
100,000
dollars,
but
the
Postmaster-General
declined
it
on
the
plea
that
its
working
'had
not
satisfied
him
that
under
any
rate
of
postage
that
could
be
adopted
its
revenues
could
be
made
equal
to
its
expenditures.'
Thus
through
the
narrow
views
and
purblindness
of
its
official
the
nation
lost
an
excellent
opportunity
of
keeping
the
telegraph
system
in
its
own
hands.
Morse
was
disappointed
at
this
refusal,
but
it
proved
a
blessing
in
disguise.
He
and
his
agent,
the
Hon.
Amos
Kendall,
determined
to
rely
on
private
enterprise.
A
line
between
New
York
and
Philadelphia
was
projected,
and
the
apparatus
was
exhibited
in
Broadway
at
a
charge
of
twenty-five
cents
a
head.
But
the
door-money
did
not
pay
the
expenses.
There
was
an
air
of
poverty
about
the
show.
One
of
the
exhibitors
slept
on
a
couple
of
chairs,
and
the
princely
founder
of
Cornell
University
was
grateful
to
Providence
for
a
shilling
picked
up
on
the
side-walk,
which
enabled
him
to
enjoy
a
hearty
breakfast.
Sleek
men
of
capital,
looking
with
suspicion
on
the
meagre
furniture
and
miserable
apparatus,
withheld
their
patronage;
but
humbler
citizens
invested
their
hard-won
earnings,
the
Magnetic
Telegraph
Company
was
incorporated,
and
the
line
was
built.
The
following
year,
1846,
another
line
was
run
from
Philadelphia
to
Baltimore
by
Mr.
Henry
O'Reilly,
of
Rochester,
N.Y.,
an
acute
pioneer
of
the
telegraph.
In
the
course
of
ten
years
the
Atlantic
States
were
covered
by
a
straggling
web
of
lines
under
the
control
of
thirty
or
forty
rival
companies
working
different
apparatus,
such
as
that
of
Morse,
Bain,
House,
and
Hughes,
but
owing
to
various
causes
only
one
or
two
were
paying
a
dividend.
It
was
a
fit
moment
for
amalgamation,
and
this
was
accomplished
in
1856
by
Mr.
Hiram
Sibley.
Marker
Marker
Fine marker
White-out
Fine white-out
Circle
Paint
Unmarker
Hand
Scalpel
Dice
Sieve
Purify
Undo
Redo
Start over
