During the autumn of 1844 short exhibition lines were erected in Boston
and New York, for the purpose of familiarizing business men of those
cities with the characteristics of the new invention, but they attracted
little attention and the promoters had much cause of discouragement on
account of public indifference. For the purpose of arousing more
attention to the system, appeals were made to the public press for
favorable notice, which were also generally declined. The proprietor of
one of the most prominent and enterprising of the New York daily papers
distinctly refused to encourage the establishment of telegraph lines,
for the reason, as he freely acknowledged, that if the new method of
transmitting intelligence were to come into general use his competitors
could use it as well as himself, and he would therefore be deprived of
his present advantage over them for procuring early news by the use of
an expensive system of special despatch then maintained by his paper.
Two years later he refused to join other papers in receiving the
Governor's message by telegraph from Albany, and was so badly beaten by
his rivals in this instance that his paper was thenceforward one of the
most generous patrons of the telegraph.

Early in the year 1845 a corporate organization was effected for the
extension of the telegraph from Baltimore to Philadelphia and New York,
under the name of the Magnetic Telegraph Company, for which a special
act of incorporation was obtained from the Legislature of the State of
Maryland. Nearly all of the capital of this company was subscribed by
Washington people. Baltimore and Philadelphia furnished only a few
hundred dollars, while New York contributed nothing. Slow progress was
made toward the construction of the line on account of the difficulty of
obtaining the right of way either upon railways or highways, and it was
not until January, 1846, that the line was completed to the west side of