Happy Valentine’s Day! Today, let’s talk Old West technology. In 1837, Samuel Morse filed for a US patent for his electrical telegraph line and in 1838, he sent his first public demonstration of the device over two miles of line in New Jersey. From there, the telegraph spread out across the East Coast, taking decades to become indispensable to Americans. It was the 1850s, however, before the Wild West was connected to the rest of the country. California began using telegraph lines before this date, but the first time the West was hooked up to the East was on Valentine’s Day, 1854, when Marshall, Texas was connected to the Louisiana line.
The Texas and Red River Company opened its first office on that day, offering patrons connections with New Orleans via Shreveport and with Alexandria, Louisiana, and Natchez, Mississippi. Lines were strung treetop to treetop, and in many instances, telegraph operators closed their office and rode along the lines to make repairs when the wind swaying the branches broke the wires. Later that year, Houston, Galveston, and other Texas towns were literally brought online. By 1870, there was an estimated 1,500 miles of telegraph line in Texas. Expansion was rapid up to 1890 as the transcontinental railroads laid wire across the state. By 1943, the Western Union Telegraph Company, which began operating in Texas in 1866, was the only telegraph company still operating in that state. They closed the Marshall telegraph office—the oldest in Texas--in1972.
But how does a telegraph work? Let’s talk science. A telegraph transmits electrical signals from a battery through its wires, from a transmitter to a receiver. The wires form a series circuit, where all components are connected end-to-end to form a single path for current flow. The knob on the telegraph key acts as a switch. When the switch is pushed down, it makes contact with the base and closes the circuit. Electrical current can then flow to the receiver. When the knob is released, it opens the switch and breaks the circuit. The receiver contains an electromagnet. When that receives a pulse of electricity, it moves an armature that makes a click or that is connected to an ink roller. The ink roller marks a strip of paper.
These marks are not in English, however, or any other human language. They are in Morse Code, named after its inventor, Samuel Morse. The letters and numbers in this code are represented by combinations of long and short signals of sound (or you can transmit the code with light flashes as well). The short sounds and flashes are called dots, and the longer ones are dashes. The more commonly used letters are given the shorter patterns. For example, ‘E’ is the most commonly used letter in the alphabet, so its sound is one dot. The letter ‘J,” one used less often, is coded as dot dash dash dash (. - - - ). Telegraph operators became so skilled at deciphering this code that the better ones could translate 45 words per minute!
Your characters would certainly have communicated via the telegraph, one way or another. Perhaps they themselves sent or received a message, or perhaps they read a newspaper whose articles were supplied by a telegraph. Just be mindful of the dates for the Old West towns and territories to be hooked up to this system.
In case you should need it for your manuscript, here is the Morse code, with dots represented by a full stop and dashes by a hyphen.
A . - J . - - - S . . . 2 . . - - -
B - . . . K - . - T - 3 . . . - -
C - . - . L . - . . U . . - 4. . . . . –
D - . . M - - V . . . - 5. . . . . .
E . N - . W . – - 6 - . . . .
‘F . . - . O - - - X - . . - 7. - - . . .
G - - . P . - - . Y - . - - 8 - - - . .
H . . . . Q - - . - Z - - . . 9 - - - - .
I . . R . - . 1 . - - - - 0 - - - - -
J.E.S. Hays
www.jeshays.com
www.facebook.com/JESHaysBooks
No comments:
Post a Comment