Old Telegraph Line

Telegraph Road took its name from one of the first telegraph lines in the United States, which passed near here. The line, completed by the Washington and New Orleans Telegraph Company in 1848, stretched for 1,500 miles and linked the nation's capital to the Deep South. Amos Kendall, a former U.S. postmaster general and an agent for inventor Samuel F. B. Morse, organized the company. Construction flaws made the line undependable in its early years, and it sustained extensive damage during the Civil War. In 1866 the line was absorbed by the American Telegraph Co., which merged with Western Union later that year.