In March 1843, the US Congress appropriated $30,000 to Samuel Morse to lay a telegraph line between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland, along the right-of-way of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Morse originally decided to lay the wire underground, asking 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. Cornell's plow was pulled by eight mules, and cut a ditch wide and deep, laid a pipe with the wires, and reburied the pipe, in an integrated operation. However, the project was stopped after about of wire was laid because the line was failing. Morse learned that Cooke and Wheatstone were using poles for their lines in England and decided to follow their lead. Installation of the lines and poles from Washington to Baltimore began on April 1, 1844, using chestnut poles high spaced apart, for a total of about 500 poles. Two 16-gauge copper wires were installed; they were insulated with cotton thread, shellac, and a mixture of "beeswax, resin, linseed oil, and asphalt." A test of the still incomplete line occurred on May 1, 1844, when news of the Whig Party's nomination of Henry Clay for U.S. President was sent from the party's convention in Baltimore to the Capitol Building in Washington.
Operations
Morse's line was demonstrated on May 24, 1844, from the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the United States Capitol in Washington to the Mount Clare station of the railroad in Baltimore, and commenced with the transmission of Morse's first message to Alfred Vail, "What hath God wrought", a phrase from the Bible's Book of Numbers. The phrase was suggested by Annie Ellsworth, whose husband was a supporter of Morse's, and knew Morse was religious. As U.S. Postmaster General, Cave Johnson was in charge of the line. Morse was made superintendent of the line, and Alfred Vail and Henry Rogers the operators. The next year, Johnson reported that "the importance of to the public does not consist of any probable income that can ever be derived from it," which led to the invention being returned for private development.
