CHAPTER LII.

TELEGRAPHS, TELEPHONES, AND ELECTRIC LIGHTS.

THE first telegraph of any kind by which intelligence was brought to Philadelphia was established in 1809, under the patronage of the Chamber of Commerce, and according to the plan of Jonathan Grout, who set it up. Grout was a schoolmaster, and of somewhat testy disposition and eccentric in character. He was a native of Belchertown, Mass., and had at an early period turned his attention to the subject of telegraphic communication. In 1798 he had established a line of telegraphs between Boston and Martha's Vineyard, ninety miles, over which it is recorded messages were sent in ten minutes. He received a patent from Congress in 1800. The character of his invention is not exactly known, but it is probable that it was upon the semaphore plan. There was enough merit in it to interest the merchants of Philadelphia sufficiently to raise the means for the establishment of a line of telegraph to Reedy Island, at the head of Delaware Bay, from which early news of the arrival of ships was important to business interests. A charter was granted by the Legislature to the Reedy Island Telegraph Company March 24, 1809. The line was shortly afterward constructed, and on the 8th of November of the same year the first dispatch received in the city announced the arrival in the Delaware of the ship "Fanny," from Lisbon. How long this telegraph was continued is not exactly known. Statements made years afterward were to the effect that it was soon abandoned, not for reason of inefficiency, but because the peculiar temperament of Grout led him into controversies and quarrels with his customers, who gradually withdrew their confidence from him, and eventually the line proved to be a failure.

Dr. John Redman Coxe took great interest in the subject of telegraphs, and published in the Emporium of Arts and Sciences for 1812, vol. ii. p. 99, a description of his plan for a revolving telegraph for conveying intelligence by figures, letters, words, or sentences. The machine consisted of a semicircular frame fixed upon a wooden frame, which could be made to rotate upon a turn-table upon rollers on the top of a tower or other high place. There were thirteen chambers or windows in the upper part of the frame managed by ropes. The telegraphing was done principally by the windows, in opening or shutting them, wholly or partially, and an arrangement was proposed by the use of lights for telegraphing at night. Dr. Coxe afterward turned his thoughts to the use of galvanism for telegraphic purposes, a suggestion which it has since been ascertained had already been acted upon by Dr. Samuel Thomas von Soemmering, in Munich, in 1807. The latter sent the galvanic current through ten thousand feet of wire, and arranged his signals to be produced by the decomposition of water. There is no suspicion that Dr. Coxe

ever knew of these experiments, which attracted no attention at the time, and could not be suspected to be of the importance which was afterward manifested, when electricity was applied to the wires instead of galvanism. Dr. Coxe, in 1815, wrote to Thomson's Annals of Philosophy a letter published in London, February, 1816, vol., vii. 1st series, in which, speaking of galvanism, he said,-

"I have, however, contemplated this important agent (galvanism) as a probable means of establishing telegraphic communication with as much rapidity, and perhaps less expense, than any hitherto employed. I do not know how far experiment has determined galvanic action to be communicated by means of wires, but there is no reason to suppose it confined as to limits. Certainly not as to time. Now by means of apparatus fixed at certain distances, as Telegraph Stations, and by tubes for the decomposition of water and of salts, etc., regularly arranged, such a key might be adopted as would be requisite to communicate words and sentences, or figures from one station to another, and so on to the end of the line. I will take another opportunity to enlarge upon this, as I think it might serve many useful purposes; but like all others it requires time to mature. As it takes up little room and may be fixed in private, it might in many cases of besieged towns, etc., convey useful intelligence with scarcely a chance of detection by the enemy. How

ever fanciful in speculation, I have no doubt that sooner or later it will be rendered useful in practice."

Actually this suggestion differed only in degree from the plan afterward adopted in the working of the Bain Electric Telegraph. It has been said that Dr. Coxe subsequently demonstrated the merits of his plan to his students by setting up wires and using the voltaic pile in the lecture-room of the University of Pennsylvania, for telegraphic purposes; but if such experiments were made, there is unfortunately no record of them.

There was for some years prior to 1846 a private telegraph between New York and Philadelphia of the existence of which the majority of the people were profoundly ignorant. It was established perhaps as early as 1840, and its operations were not made known to the public. The proprietor was William C. Bridges, stock and exchange broker of this city, and the dispatches were principally used to convey the drawn numbers in lotteries, and the prices of stocks for the benefit of the brokers who were interested in the line. The telegraph stations were placed on the high points across New Jersey, and there must have been some station in Philadelphia at a sufficient altitude from the nearest station on the east side of the river to observe the signals. The operations in daytime were somewhat upon the semaphore plan, and were visible from station to station, and sent on from one to the other. At night the signals were given by lights with flashes. This was done by the use of a box in which a lamp was placed in front of a parabolic reflector. A common wooden drop in front of the box, operated by a lever, could be raised so that the light would be shown, and allowed to fall so as to shut it off. By the length of time during which the light was shown signals were made, analogous to the short and long dashes and dots afterward used in the Morse telegraph. Long and short flashes conveyed the information, and these

being arranged formed sentences and words. A telescope to the apparatus at each station kept the light in view although at a long distance. Subsequently the principle of the heliostat was adopted, by which flashes of sunlight upon a mirror could be conveyed to long distances, and would not be visible to other persons who were not within the direct line of the flash. This telegraph was superseded, as a matter of course, when the electro-magnetic telegraph came into operation. In January, 1846, the Public Ledger published the following:

"The private signal telegraph from Philadelphia," the Burlington Gazette says, "has just been abandoned, having no doubt done good service to its owners. It has been in use several years. One of the stations was on the hill at Mount Holly, while the others were on different elevations a few miles apart, so that a good telescope could distinguish the signals. Intelligence was conveyed from one city to the other in about ten minutes, by elevating boards on a pole in a particular way by means of machinery at the foot of the pole. At night lamps of different colors were used. The whole concern was sold for about three thousand dollars. It was a great affair when first established, and many mysterious movements in the Philadelphia stock and produce markets were laid at the door of the speculators who worked the telegraph. No doubt the speculation paid them well. But though a good thing at first, it has been superseded by a better,-Morse's electro-magnetic telegraph has prostrated all rivals."

For the present purpose it is not necessary to expatiate upon the claims made upon behalf of rival scientists to the invention of the magnetic telegraph. Several minds were engaged with the subject in this country and in Europe. There is no difficulty about the fact that Samuel F. B. Morse was the first person who demonstrated the practicability of the magnetic telegraph in the United States. The means by which he arrived at sufficient perfection in his plans to establish the first practical line are well known. He petitioned Congress in 1838 for assistance in establishing a line of telegraph between Baltimore and Washington without immediate success.

In 1842 Congress, on the 3d of March, passed an act appropriating thirty thousand dollars for the purpose, and "to test the practicability of establishing a system of electro-magnetic telegraph in the United States. Professor Morse at once set to work. His first idea was to lay the wires near the sleepers of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in lead pipes and underground. The preparation of the wires was very imperfect, and the experiment was a failure, the pipes having been laid about ten miles from Baltimore to the Relay House. The plan of constructing a line of wires stretched upon poles was then resorted to, the wires being carried over the cross-arms in notches insulated by being placed on prepared canvas saturated with some composition. At this time the line was commenced at Washington, about the beginning of the year 1844. It was tested as it proceeded, and on the 1st of May the cars from Baltimore to Washington were apprised, when twenty miles from Washington, of the Whig nomination, at the National Convention in Baltimore, of Henry Clay and Theodore Frelinghuysen, which had been made after the cars

started. The line was completed on the 24th of May, 1844, and Miss Annie Ellsworth, daughter of the chief commissioner of patents, a young lady who was the first to give to Professor Morse the joyful intelligence of the passage of the bill by Congress two years before making an appropriation for the purpose of testing the telegraph, was sent for to dictate the first message ever sent between the two cities, and it was in these words, "WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT!" The next day the telegraph was thrown open to business between Washington and Baltimore, and at one o'clock the first press message was sent over the line from the capitol to the Baltimore Patriot, announcing that the House had refused to go into committee of the whole on the Oregon question, a motion to that effect having been defeated. The proceedings of the Democratic National Convention at Baltimore, and of the Tyler National Convention also meeting there, were telegraphed to the National Intelligencer at Washington regularly. That paper, speaking of the unusual occurrence, said, "During the whole day a crowd of persons, including a number of members of Congress, were in attendance at the capitol to receive the reports by the telegraph of the news from Baltimore, which were made at successive intervals with striking dispatch and accuracy, and were received by the auditors as the responses of the ancient oracle may be supposed to have been, with emotions corresponding to the various and opposite sentiments of those composing the assembly. Whatever variety of impression the news made upon the auditory, however, there was but one sentiment concerning the telegraph itself, which was that of mingled delight and wonder."

The line was continued in operation for several months, but the receipts were not sufficient to maintain it. It was announced on the 30th of January, 1845, that it would be discontinued on the 1st of February, but some arrangements were made for its continuance, and during the session Congress appropriated eight thousand dollars for the service of the line under the direction of the Postmaster-General, thus making the line a postal-telegraph. He appointed as officers under him: Superintendent, Professor Morse; Assistant Superintendents, Alfred Vail and Henry J. Rogers; Battery-Tender and Line-Repairer, Henry W. Cleveland. During the remainder of that year, from March 31st to December 31st, the charge for telegraphing being one cent per word, the whole amount received for the business of the line was $725.48, of which $352.80 were paid at Washington, and $372.68 at Baltimore. During that first period the public value of the service was demonstrated by reports of election news and returns. The method of sending dispatches was limited, in consequence of the defective character of the apparatus. It was found that the receiving-magnet could not be worked so as to transmit more than twenty words per minute. Mr. Vail, therefore, invented a dictionary, in order to