In 1842, Newkirk resigned as PW&B president. He was replaced by Matthew Brooke Buckley (1794-1856), who had become a PW&B board member on Jan. 10, 1842, and one week later had taken over leadership of one of the railroad's three executive committees, the Northern one. As president, Buckley helped create the first telegraph line, (the previous invention of Samuel F. B. Morse laid over the B&O line to Washington in 1844), from Philadelphia to Baltimore (and hence from points north and south) by agreeing to allow the builder to use the PW&B right-of-way in exchange for the use of the communications equipment.