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
Maryland Route 23 to High Point Road west of Forest Hill. The first section of MD 23 to be paved was the part of the Old York Turnpike from MD 138 to MD 439, which was improved as a macadam state-aid road by 1910. The portion of MD 23 from Hickory to Jarrettsville was designated one of the original state roads by the Maryland State Roads Commission in 1909. The state road was constructed with a macadam surface from Hickory to Grafton Shop Road in 1910, from Morse Road to Jarrettsville in 1914, and between Grafton Shop Road and Morse Road in 1915.