Telegraph Invented – 3

Today’s installment concludes Telegraph Invented,
our selection by Alonzo B. Cornell.

If you have journeyed through all of the installments of this series, just one more to go and you will have completed a selection from the great works of three thousand words. Congratulations!

Previously in Telegraph Invented.

Time: 1844

No method of insulation had yet been devised that would permit the operation of an electric conductor under water and it was doubted whether a wire could be maintained for a span sufficient to cross the river overhead. Finally however high masts were erected on the Palisades near Fort Lee and on the heights at Fort Washington on the New York side and a steel wire was suspended upon them. This plan was successful, except that occasionally the wire was broken by an extraordinary burden of sleet in the winter season. This method of crossing the lower Hudson was continued for more than ten years, when it was superseded by submarine cables.

During the year 1846 incorporated companies were formed, under which telegraph lines were extended from New York to Boston, Buffalo and Pittsburg and within the next three years nearly every important town in the United States and Canada, from St. Louis and New Orleans to Montreal and Halifax, was brought into telegraphic communication. Thus, after fifteen years of struggle with all the pains of poverty, often lacking even the common necessaries of life, Professor Morse and his faithful colaborers had the supreme satisfaction, in 1847, of knowing and realizing that the telegraph system had finally achieved, not only scientific success, for this had been proven years before but that financial success, ample and complete, had come to pay them richly for all the dark days and wearisome years through which they had passed.

Once generally established, the telegraph won its way to popular appreciation very rapidly. It was in harmony with the spirit of the age and it was not long before every town of any considerable importance regarded telegraphic facilities as an indispensable necessity. The small cost soon induced the construction of rival lines, regardless of the rights of the patentees and within a very few years unwise competition began to bring many lines to a condition of bankruptcy. The weaker concerns soon passed through the sheriff’s hands and found purchasers only at an extreme sacrifice, at the bidding of the more provident and conservative proprietors of competing lines. Instead of inducing a more prudent course, these disastrous results only served to feed the spirit of rivalry and general insolvency seemed to threaten the permanent prosperity of the telegraph business, in consequence of the wild and reckless competition which appeared to be inherent in its nature.

This extremely unsatisfactory condition of telegraph rivalry drifted on from bad to worse until 1854, when, from dire necessity of self-preservation, a few of the more prudent and far-sighted proprietors of telegraph property were induced to combine their interests with some of their competitors and thus avoid the ruinous policy which had been so rapidly exhausting their vitality. Accordingly the principal telegraph lines in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and some of the neighboring States were brought into fraternal relations and formed the nucleus of the Western Union Telegraph Company.

The new policy soon brought prosperity in place of waste and improvidence. Profits were devoted to the purchase of additional lines, thus enlarging their domain and strengthening their position. Prosperity increased with rapid strides; and the beneficial effects of extirpating wasteful rivalry and building up a substantial system with superior facilities and provident management gave the new organization a dominating influence among the telegraph companies of America. The same general policy has been pursued to the present time [1894] and has resulted in the establishment of a prosperous corporation of magnificent proportions, carrying on a useful and beneficent business under a greater number of governmental jurisdictions, great and small, than any other corporate organization in existence.

For the development of the telegraph enterprise in America no thanks are due to the wealthy capitalists. As a rule they would not listen to suggestions of investing their money in what was contemptuously termed rotten poles and rusty wires. They wanted something more substantial and conservative as the basis of their investments. An early pioneer and builder of telegraph lines, whose name is now held in grateful memory for deeds of philanthropic beneficence visited the city of Chicago in 1847 to solicit subscriptions to the capital stock of a company then engaged in construction of the first line of telegraph between that place and the city of Buffalo. He presented a carefully prepared prospectus showing an estimated earning capacity of the projected line of one hundred dollars per day. The merits of the contemplated enterprise were freely canvassed at a meeting of bankers, at which one of the most prominent declared that any man who ever expected to see one hundred dollars per day paid for telegraphing west of Buffalo must be crazy and unworthy of belief. This oracular declaration prevailed and the project was ignominiously rejected by the wise men of Chicago. Fortunately, citizens of smaller towns, like Ypsilanti, Kalamazoo, South Bend, Kenosha and Racine, took a more sensible view of the proposed enterprise and the line was built despite the contempt of Chicago capitalists. Now, however, the men of Chicago pay more than five thousand dollars a day for telegraphing at rates far lower than would have been thought possible in that early day.

The true spirit of enterprise, which has so grandly developed the resources of our imperial domain, has generally been found to prevail among people of modest means. Thus, nearly every dollar of capital contributed toward the establishment of telegraph lines in this country came from the offerings of people in very moderate circumstances. In this connection, therefore, it is extremely gratifying to state that very few enterprises of any kind have returned such generous recompense for the amount of capital invested as the telegraph and telephone lines in America. Considering the apparently temporary and short-lived character of the structures erected for these purposes, it seems difficult to comprehend the truth of this statement.

The method of telegraphic communication devised by Professor Morse has been continued in general use in this country but instead of requiring separate wire for each circuit as formerly, six independent circuits are now operated simultaneously over a single wire by the use of the sextuplex apparatus.

This ends our series of passages on Telegraph Invented by Alonzo B. Cornell. This blog features short and lengthy pieces on all aspects of our shared past. Here are selections from the great historians who may be forgotten (and whose work have fallen into public domain) as well as links to the most up-to-date developments in the field of history and of course, original material from yours truly, Jack Le Moine. – A little bit of everything historical is here.

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