History of the Morse Telegraph

History of the Morse Telegraph

All this started with an idea that dawned with Samuel Morse when he was returning from a trip to Europe. He was an eminent artist, but with a keen interest in the developing sciences, he had visited Europe to further his understand of the styles used their. On his return by ship he had plenty of time, and discussions took place on the ship. Out of these discussions ideas started to dawn in Morse's mind for an electrical communication system.

After his return, progress on developing his ideas for a communications system were slow. Eventually he enlisted the help of others including a man named Alfred Vail, a gifted mechanic. Progress became much faster and by 1838 they developed a system using dots and dashes to represent letters. Next they needed to secure funding for a trial system. This proved to be very difficult to achieve and the team Morse had brought around him drifted away. Nevertheless Morse was undeterred by the lack of interest, and he continued without most of his other partners. Finally he succeeded in securing funding to develop and install a trial 65 km line between Washington and Baltimore. It was completed in May 1844 and on 24th May Morse sent the first message "What hath God wrought!". The content of this message was chosen from the Bible (Numbers Chapter 23 vs 23) by Annie Ellsworth the young daughter of a good friend.

After the successful demonstration of this first line people quickly realised the value of the new system and its use spread very rapidly. Within a year many new companies came into being to run lines to all parts of America. New lines were installed, often along side railroad tracks. This enabled the railroad companies to keep in contact with trains and by knowing where trains were and whether there were any delays they could use the single lines that were installed more efficiently. It was also found that towns that had been isolated now had communications links with the outside world. Previously communications relied on stagecoaches or the Pony Express, requiring days or weeks to cross the whole of the USA. In fact so successful was the Morse telegraph that only 19 months after the Pony Express was started it had to be discontinued.

Not only was the Morse system used in the USA, Europe and the rest of the world used it because of its effectiveness and simplicity. The first European line was set up between Hamburg and Cuxhaven in 1847, and many others quickly followed suit. Soon the need to link countries across seas and oceans was realised and in 1866 a submarine cable link was established between Britain and the USA, and by 1872 a link to Australia was established.