Charles Benedict Calvert telegraph, Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail. On April 9, 1844, Morse and Vail successfully tested their device by transmitting a message from the nation's capital to the Calvert home, Riversdale. This test came 45 days before the more celebrated event when Morse sent the message "What hath God wrought?" from Washington to Baltimore, along telegraph lines that ran above the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad line near Riversdale. Calvert became president of the Prince George's County, Maryland Agricultural Society and the Maryland State Agricultural Society, and served as vice president of the United States Pomological Society. He founded the first agricultural
First transcontinental telegraph reach Los Angeles. 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 – the Baltimore-Washington telegraph line – 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 admitted to the United States in 1850, the first state on the Pacific coast. Major efforts ensued to integrate California with the other states, including sea and overland