The timeline of North American telegraphy is a chronology of notable events in the history of the electric telegraphy in the United States and Canada, including the rapid spread of telegraphic communications starting from 1844 and completion of the first transcontinental telegraph line in 1861.
Timeline
Early events 1826-27: Harrison Gray Dyar successfully experiments with electrical telegraphy but abandons the pursuit. 1836: David Alter of Pennsylvania develops a working electrical telegraph system, but never develops the idea into a practical system. Jan 1837: Samuel Chester Reid proposes that the U.S. Congress fund an optical telegraph (semaphore line) from New York to New Orleans. Sept 1837: Morse employs Alfred Vail to improve his telegraph from demonstration purposes for a share of future patent rights. Sept 1837: Samuel Morse files for a patent for his electrical telegraph in the United States. 6 Jan 1838: Samuel Morse sends his first public demonstration message over two miles of wire at Speedwell Ironworks in New Jersey. Morse also demonstrates his invention to the Franklin Institute and President Martin Van Buren in early 1838. April 1838: Congressman Francis Ormand Jonathan Smith proposes to give $30,000 for Morse to build a line to demonstrate the telegraph, but the bill does not pass. 20 June 1840: Morse obtains patent. 1843 3 March 1843: The United States Congress appropriates funds for Samuel Morse to lay a telegraph line from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore. 21 October 1843: Originally Morse decided to lay his wire underground, and asked Ezra Cornell to lay the line using a special cable-laying plow that Cornell had developed. Wire began to be laid in Baltimore on October 21, 1843, but the project was stopped after 15 km of wire was laid because the line was failing. Morse learned that Cooke and Wheatstone in England were now using poles for their lines, and he decided to follow that lead. 1844 1 April 1844: Work begins in Washington on laying the line to Baltimore using poles. Gamaliel "Gam" E. Smith, Esq., an acquaintance of Samuel Morse and a lighthouse-building mason from Maine, was chosen to complete the job. He used chestnut poles of seven meters in height, and 60 meters apart. Two wires were laid, Number 16 copper wire, covered by cotton thread with shellac, and a covering mixture of "beeswax, resin, linseed oil, and asphalt.". 1 May 1844: Test of line conveys news of the Whig Party's nomination of Henry Clay for U.S. President from the party's convention in Baltimore to the Capitol Building in Washington. 24 May 1844: Morse's first message over the Baltimore-Washington telegraph line, "What hath God wrought!" is transmitted, chosen from the Bible for Morse by Annie G. Ellsworth, because she knew Morse was religious. Summer 1844: To generate interest in building a line from New York to Boston, Cornell strings short exhibition line in Boston, from School Street and over Old City Hall to Sudbury Street, which generates public interest, but no investors. Cornell then sets up a similar exhibition in New York.
Spread of telegraphic lines
1845 1 April 1845: First public telegraph office opens in Washington, D.C., under the control of the Postmaster-General. The public now had to pay for messages, which were no longer free. 15 May 1845: Morse forms the Magnetic Telegraph Company with Amos Kendall, Francis O.J. Smith, Ezra Cornell, and Orrin S. Wood, with a goal to extend the Washington-Baltimore line to New York. 16-18 September 1845: Orrin S. Wood builds a short telegraph line of about one mile from Utica, New York to the city fairgrounds (the site of that year's New York State Fair), for public demonstration. September 1845: Henry O'Reilly commences building line intended to extend from Philadelphia to St. Louis. Work on first segment begins in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, heading east to Philadelphia. October 1845: Samuel Colt partners with William Robinson (a New York book dealer) to form the New York and Offing Electric Telegraph Association. A line is laid from an observation tower built on Coney Island to Manhattan to get news from shipping traffic to the New York Mercantile Exchange more quickly. The first line laid across the East River from Brooklyn by Colt on October 23 or 24 quickly fails. The northern terminus of the line becomes the Fulton Ferry in Brooklyn, with news then ferried across the river. A second line across the East River at Hell Gate was operational by March 1846. 7 November 1845: Wood builds a line from Buffalo, New York to Lockport, New York (about 30 miles) that goes into operation on November 7 - the first line opened for regular commercial business. The first message announced the electoral victory of the Whigs in Niagara County. November 1845: November 14, 1845 New York Herald notes another short planned line, the "Boston Marine Line", which, similar to the New York Offing Line would be a line from Nantasket outside Boston to inner Boston to transmit news from incoming ships. In a letter to the Herald dated February 23, 1846, Ezra Cornell noted that the Boston line had not yet been put into operation. 24 November 1845: Line from Lancaster, Pennsylvania to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (about 35 miles) is completed, but not operational until January 8, 1846. November 1845: In the fall of 1845, the Magnetic Telegraph Company commences building a line from Philadelphia to New York. By early November, a 14 mile segment from Philadelphia to Norristown, Pennsylvania had been laid, and opened due to great public interest in the work.
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