WORDS ON A WIRE

The 24^th October 1861 marks an impressive day in the history of electronic communication. The First Transcontinental Telegraph line across the United States was completed.

Morse

After the development of efficient telegraph systems in the 1830s, their use saw almost explosive growth in the 1840s. Samuel Morse’s first experimental line between Washington D.C. and Baltimore was demonstrated on May 24, 1844. By 1850 there were lines covering most of the eastern states, and a separate network of lines was soon constructed in the booming economy of California.

California was also admitted to the United States in 1850, the first state not contiguous with the eastern government. Major efforts ensued to integrate California with the other states, including sea and overland mail and passenger service. Proposals for the subsidy of a telegraph line to California were made in Congress throughout the 1850s, and in 1860 the U.S. Post Office was authorized to spend $40,000 per year to build and maintain an overland line. The year before, the California State Legislature had authorized a similar subsidy of $6000 per year.

Sibley

The federal contract authorized through the Pacific Telegraph Act of 1860 was awarded to Hiram Sibley, the president of the Western Union Company. He then formed a consortium between Western Union and the telegraph companies in California: to share the efforts of constructing the overland telegraph, to split up the federal and state subsidies, and to share any profits from operation of the line. The newly consolidated Overland Telegraph Company of California (First President Horace Walpole Carpentier) would build the line eastward from Carson City (the eastern terminus of their lines), using the newly developed central route though Nevada and Utah. At the same time, the Pacific Telegraph Company of Nebraska was formed by Sibley. It would construct a line westward from Omaha, essentially using the eastern portion of the Oregon Trail. The lines would meet at a station in Salt Lake City.

The site where the east and west sections

of the transcontinental telegraph were joined.

East side of Main Street, Salt Lake City, Utah

with telegraph office, ca. 1862.

Materials for the line were collected in late 1860, and construction proceeded during the second half of 1861. Major problems in provisioning the construction teams were overcome, and there was a constant shortage of sources of telegraph poles on the plains of the Midwest and the deserts of the Great Basin. The line from Omaha reached Salt Lake City on October 18, 1861, and the line from Carson City was completed on 24^th October .

This is an extract from an account of the construction by James Gamble who was a pioneer in building the first telegraph lines on the Pacific coast. He started his career in 1848 as a telegrapher in Hannibal, Missouri after spending thirty days of training in St. Louis. He soon after moved to Illinois where he became the manager of the telegraph offices located in the cities of Quincy, Chicago, Jacksonville, and Alton. All of these offices were part of Judge John D. Caton's Illinois and Mississippi Telegraph Company. While at Alton, he was also the editor of the Alton Daily Courier before moving to California in the early 1850s.

Gamble

“The material having been provided, the next important move was to get it on the ground. Early in the spring of 1861 I was authorized by the company to fit out an expedition and commence the work of construction. It was estimated that it would take twenty-six wagons to carry the material and supplies across the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and these I was instructed to purchase, together with the necessary animals to move them. This was accomplished and the expedition was ready to move on the 27th of May, 1861. It comprised 228 oxen, 26 wagons, 50 men, and several riding-horses. Everything necessary for the work and subsistence had to be carried on the wagons, but as there was a fair road over the mountains, it was thought the crossing could be made in about twelve or fifteen days. The expedition was placed in charge of I. M. Hubbard, an experienced and energetic telegraph man. Instead of fifteen days, as supposed, it took over thirty days to get across the Sierra Nevada. The (wagon) train was very long and the road narrow, and it was found that many of the wagons were too heavily laden for the mountain roads; so it made but slow progress. In addition to this, the (wagon) train frequently blocked up the road, delaying incoming trains as long as a day at a time. It was, therefore, finally concluded to cut up the telegraph train into several sections, and it was not until late in June that the expedition reached Carson Valley, and the work of construction commenced. In the meantime, the poles were being distributed from both ends of the line of route, and, as the wire and insulators for the eastern end had been ordered shipped from the Missouri river to Salt Lake, the work began energetically from both ends.”

The first messages sent to San Francisco:

SALT LAKE, OCTOBER 24, 1861, 5:13 P.M.

TO GENERAL H.W. CARPENTIER:

LINE JUST COMPLETED. CAN YOU COME TO OFFICE?

STREET

Young

GREAT SALT LAKE CITY, OCTOBER 24, 7 P.M.

TO HON. H. W. CARPENTIER, PRESIDENT OF THE OVERLAND TELEGRAPH COMPANY

DEAR SIR: I AM VERY MUCH OBLIGED FOR YOUR KINDNESS, MANIFESTED THROUGH YOU AND MR. STREET, IN GIVING ME PRIVILEGE OF FIRST MESSAGE TO CALIFORNIA. MAY SUCCESS EVER ATTEND THE ENTERPRISE. THE SUCCESS OF MR. STREET IN COMPLETING HIS END OF THE LINE UNDER MANY UNFAVORABLE CIRCUMSTANCES IN SO SHORT A TIME IS BEYOND OUR MOST SANGUINE ANTICIPATIONS. JOIN YOUR WIRES WITH THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE, AND WE WILL CONVERSE WITH EUROPE.

YOUR FRIEND

BRIGHAM YOUNG

Carpentier

SAN FRANCISCO, CAL., OCTOBER 24, 1861

TO HON. BRIGHAM YOUNG, GREAT SALT LAKE CITY:

THAT WHICH WAS SO LONG A HOPE IS NOW A REALITY. THE TRANSCONTINENTAL TELEGRAPH IS COMPLETE. I CONGRATULATE YOU UPON THE AUSPICIOUS EVENT. MAY IT PROVE A BOND OF PERPETUAL UNION AND FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN THE PEOPLE OF UTAH AND THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA.

H. W. CARPENTIER

There was also a message sent in relation to news of a casualty in the Civil War, which had begun on the 12^th April only seven months before:

GREAT SALT LAKE CITY, OCTOBER 24, 7 P.M.

TO H. W. CARPENTIER:

COLONEL BAKER WAS KILLED IN BATTLE ON THE 21ST, WHILE IN THE ACT OF CHEERING ON HIS COMMAND. INTENSE EXCITEMENT AND MOURNING IN PHILADELPHIA OVER HIS DEATH.

STREET

And this message followed;

Field

TO ABRAHAM LINCOLN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:

IN THE TEMPORARY ABSENSE OF THE GOVERNOR OF THE STATE I AM REQUESTED TO SEND YOU THE FIRST MESSAGE WHICH WILL BE TRANSMITTED OVER THE WIRES OF THE TELEGRAPH LINE WHICH CONNECTS THE PACIFIC WITH THE ATLANTIC STATES. THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA DESIRE TO CONGRATULATE YOU UPON THE COMPLETION OF THE GREAT WORK. THEY BELIEVE THAT IT WILL BE THE MEANS OF STRENGTHENING THE ATTACHMENT WHICH BINDS BOTH THE EAST AND THE WEST TO THE UNION, AND THEY DESIRE IN THIS--THE FIRST MESSAGE ACROSS THE CONTINENT--TO EXPRESS THEIR LOYALTY TO THE UNION AND THEIR DETERMINATION TO STAND BY ITS GOVERNMENT ON THIS ITS DAY OF TRIAL. THEY REGARD THAT GOVERNMENT WITH AFFECTION AND WILL ADHERE TO IT UNDER ALL FORTUNES.

STEPHEN J. FIELD

CHIEF JUSTICE OF CALIFORNIA

The obstacles overcome and the tenacity with which they were dealt with to be able to send words from one end of the country to the other is pretty impressive. The significance of communication was certainly not lost on The Hon. Brigham Young. “Join your wires to the Russian Empire and we will converse with Europe”, but then, he thought of himself as a prophet, the American Moses.

One should also note the differences in the text of the messages sent by the telegraph operator Mr. Street, and the other writers. Although not completely simplified, Mr Street uses the shortened form of text developed by telegraphers all over the world. This text of course developed out of economic necessity; hence single words had to perform to a much greater extent.

The contents, the impact of the words, of Brigham Young’s cable were not lost on the telegraph companies. The Russian–American Telegraph, also known as the Western Union Telegraph Expedition and the Collins Overland Telegraph, was a $3,000,000 undertaking by the Western Union Telegraph Company in 1865-1867, to lay an electric telegraph line from San Francisco California to Moscow, Russia..

The route was intended to travel from California via Oregon, Washington Territory, the Colony of British Columbia and Russian America, under the Bering Sea and across Siberia to Moscow, where lines would communicate with the rest of Europe. It was proposed as an alternate to long, deep underwater cables in the Atlantic.

Abandoned in 1867, the Russian–American Telegraph was considered an economic failure, although the United States subsequently benefited from its explorations into Alaska.

It's amazing what a short sentence can accomplish.