the Hudson River, which formed an impassable barrier to further progress
for a considerable period.

No method of insulation had yet been devised that would permit the
operation of an electric conductor under water, and it was doubted
whether a wire could be maintained for a span sufficient to cross the
river overhead. Finally however high masts were erected on the Palisades
near Fort Lee, and on the heights at Fort Washington on the New York
side, and a steel wire was suspended upon them. This plan was
successful, except that occasionally the wire was broken by an
extraordinary burden of sleet in the winter season. This method of
crossing the lower Hudson was continued for more than ten years, when it
was superseded by submarine cables.

During the year 1846 incorporated companies were formed, under which
telegraph lines were extended from New York to Boston, Buffalo, and
Pittsburg, and within the next three years nearly every important town
in the United States and Canada, from St. Louis and New Orleans to
Montreal and Halifax, was brought into telegraphic communication. Thus,
after fifteen years of struggle with all the pains of poverty, often
lacking even the common necessaries of life, Professor Morse and his
faithful colaborers had the supreme satisfaction, in 1847, of knowing
and realizing that the telegraph system had finally achieved, not only
scientific success, for this had been proven years before, but that
financial success, ample and complete, had come to pay them richly for
all the dark days and wearisome years through which they had passed.

Once generally established, the telegraph won its way to popular
appreciation very rapidly. It was in harmony with the spirit of the age,
and it was not long before every town of any considerable importance