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
Thomas Eckert Thomas Eckert Thomas Thompson Eckert (23 April 1825 – 20 October 1910) was an officer in the U.S. Army, Chief of the War Department Telegraph Staff from 1862–1866, United States Assistant Secretary of War from 1865–1867 and an executive at Western Union. Thomas Thompson Eckert was born April 23, 1825 in St. Clairsville, Ohio. At a young age Eckert became interested in the use of the telegraph and the actions of Samuel F.B. Morse. Reading "The National Intelligencer" he became fascinated with the proceedings between Morse and Congress in which Morse was granted money to construct an experimental telegraph line.