Samuel Morse sends first telegram from Washington to Baltimore
- When
- 1844
- Where
- U.S. Capitol
- Episodes
- 1
On May 24, 1844, Samuel Morse officially opened the Washington–Baltimore telegraph line by sending the message "What hath God wrought" from the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., to Alfred Vail at the Mount Clare station in Baltimore. The line was the first long-distance electric telegraph system set up to run overland in the United States.
Episodes
Background and detail
Background. The Baltimore–Washington telegraph line was the first long-distance electric telegraph system set up to run overland in the United States. 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.
Demonstration. 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. The demonstration commenced with the transmission of Morse's first message from Washington to Alfred Vail in Baltimore.
People involved
- Samuel Morse · Inventor and transmitter
- Alfred Vail · Receiver in Baltimore
- Annie Ellsworth · Suggester of the message phrase
Sources
- Baltimore–Washington telegraph line Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-29
- Samuel Morse Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-29
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.