Spanning Half of a Century by Zina Abbott

As I prepared to focus on my year-end reviews of my 2024 books, I realized my stories had covered a wide span of years. Only seven this year—I planned on the time off in the summer to heal from my full knee replacement surgery—yet I realized what I wrote required quite a bit of research in order to keep them true to the decades and locations in which they took place.

I did not write my books in chronological order. My book with the earliest calendar setting—1855-1858—was Wyatt’s New Bride. My book with the latest calendar setting—1896-1898—was Phoebe. Here are the book timeframe/calendar settings in chronological order:

Between 1850 and 1869, except for very short spurs of rails in Kansas as the Kansas Pacific Railway began to build its line starting in Kansas City, Kansas, there were no transcontinental rail lines between the Mississippi or Missouri Rivers and the Pacific states. All long distance travel was accomplished by steamship, steamboat, carriage, covered wagons (or other wagons), carriages, or horseback/mule teams.

Wyatt in Wyatt’s New Bride (1855-58) probably covered the longest distance when he traveled by steamship, steamboat, and stagecoach from Maine to Sonora, California. It is interesting that Tuolumne County attracted many gold prospectors from Maine and other New England states. When he sent for a bride, she traveled by riverboat, covered wagon, and local freight wagon from Michigan to Sonora, California. To find the book description and purchase options, please CLICK HERE

Lucy and her Aunt Caroline plus the other characters in Lucy (1863-1865) traveled by covered wagon from Lawrence, Kansas, to a foothill community between Placerville and Sly Park, California. The Genoa, Utah Territory, characters who met them in Atchison, Kansas, (Oregon and California Trail travelers stopped using Independence and St. Joseph, Missouri, at that time due to the Civil War) traveled east from Carson City by Stagecoach on the Overland and Central Overland Trails. To find the book description and purchase options, please CLICK HERE

In A Surprise for Christmas (1864-1867), what was left of the North Carolina household of Analia’s family traveled by carriage and steamboat to her aunt’s house in Baltimore, Maryland. A couple of years later, train travel was available as far as Topeka, which was in east Kansas, where Analia met the husband she married by proxy. That was just about the limit of where the Kansas Pacific Railway tracks reached at that time. To find the book description and purchase options, please CLICK HERE

 Starting after the end of the American Civil War, the effort to expand railroad service between the Missouri River west to California began in earnest. That was when the West opened up to many. Since men were the first to head to the West—some to escape the Civil War, some seeking opportunity, or both—the issue of their being a far greater proportion of men to women continued. The number of women who made arrangements to travel to the West seeking husbands and families increased. Although it still had its drawbacks, rail service made travel much quicker. Since train service did not go everywhere, there still was plenty of stagecoach, covered wagon, and steamboat travel.

 

In Florence’s Good Deed (1877), Florence travels from West Virginia to Wisconsin to meet her groom she met through letters, only to end up traveling back after he rejects her. In Columbus, she meets Ash, who was bound for New York. He had traveled by steamboat from Fort Benton, Montana Territory, before taking the train from St. Joseph, Missouri. They continue on the train together to allow Florence to perform what could be a dangerous good deed. To find the book description and purchase options, please CLICKHERE

Jocelyn’s Wedding Dilemma starts with a prologue in 1877 and ends in 1886. However, the bulk of the story takes place in 1881. She travels by buggy while still living in Columbus, Ohio. When she leaves to meet her groom, she travels by train. Too back her mother is following close behind. To find the book description and purchase options, please CLICK HERE

Lisbeth in Lemon Cookies by Lisbeth (1883-1884) is not a mail-order bride romance. Her father’s job with the Denver & Rio Grande Railway resulted in the family moving to Cleora, Colorado. However, my hero, Roy Hobart, is also an employee of the same railway—much of the time working track, then later part of the section crew based out of Gunnison, Colorado. He travels between his job and visits to his family—his cousin in Lisbeth’s brother-in-law. To find the book description and purchase options, please CLICK HERE

In the 1890s up until the end of the century, many of the travel conditions of the previous four decades still provided the means of transportation. However, there was a new development—the invention of the automobile.

In Phoebe (1896-1898), her love interest, Graham, embraces the future of the automobile to the point he is anxious to position himself to help finance the development of the oil industry in Oklahoma Territory and neighboring Indian Territory. Part of the conflict involves the attitudes of his father and Phoebe’s parents—both parties insisting they prefer to travel by train and in a well-sprung carriage. To find the book description and purchase options, please CLICK HERE

That is my writing year in review as far as place settings, and how my brides and grooms got from here to there, depending on the decade in which they lived. If you do not already receive my newsletter or follow me on BookBub, I would love for you to sign up to do so. Please click on the links below:

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I wish all a very happy and prosperous New Year. Happy 2025!

 

Telegraph Service in 1800s United States by Zina Abbott

Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message.

Although there were optical forms of telegraphy used starting in the late 1700s, the first use of of telegraphy, as we know it today, began in the mid-19th century.

Early Cooke and Wheatstone double-needle railway

Telegraphy was first taken up in Britain in the form of the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph, which used five magnetic needles that could be pointed around a panel of letters and numbers by using an electric current. Initially, it was used primarily to aid railway signaling. A different system, developed in the United States by Samuel Morse, soon followed.

Samuel Morse was born in Massachusetts and educated at Yale University. After learning about electromagnetism during a voyage from Europe to the United States, he later learned more from American physicist, Joseph Henry. He collaborated with Gale and Vail, Morse to produce a single-circuit telegraph that worked by pushing the operator key down to complete the electric circuit of the battery. This action sent the electric signal across a wire to a receiver at the other end. All the system needed was a key, a battery, wire, and a receiver.

Samuel Morse also developed a code for universal telegraphy communication.

Western Union became the giant in telegraph communication. In the following is a timeline of telegraph development, although a few other telegraph companies are mentioned, much of it follows the progress made by Western Union.

A Morse key c. 1900

1843 – Morse and Vail received funding from the U.S. Congress to set up and test their telegraph system between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland.

1844 – On May 24, 1844, Morse sent Vail the historic first message: “What hath God wrought!” From there, aided by continuing innovations, the telegraph system spread across America and the world.

1851 – Western Union was initially founded as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York. The company changed its name to the Western Union Telegraph Company in 1856 after merging with several other telegraph companies.

1856 – The Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York. The company changed its name to the Western Union Telegraph Company after merging with several other telegraph companies.

1857 – Western Union participated in the 'Treaty of Six Nations', an attempt by six of the largest telegraph firms to create a system of regional telegraphy monopolies with a shared network of main lines.

1865 – Morse Code was adopted internationally.      

1860 – Western Union expanded through purchasing smaller companies until its lines ranged from the Mississippi River to the Ohio River.

 

Distributing poles for First Transcontinental Telegraph

1861 – Western Union had completed the first transcontinental telegraph line, which connected the Union from the West Coast to the East Coast. The first telegram was sent to President Abraham Lincoln. This provided rapid communication during the Civil War. Western Union had laid enough wire to become the first international telegraph company.

1866 – Western Union moved its headquarters from Rochester to New York City. It introduced stock tickers as a method to speed New York Stock Exchange quotes to brokerage firms.

Also in 1866, Western Union acquired the American Telegraph Company & the United States Telegraph Company, its two main competitors. For a time, this gave the company a virtual monopoly over the American telegraphy industry.

1867 – While pursuing its goal of connecting North America to Europe by Telegraph, Western Union also sponsored an expedition to survey a route across Russian-owned Alaska and Siberia. As a result of their negotiating for land rights with the Russian government, Western Union helped broker the sale of Alaska to the United States on March 30, 1867.

1870 – Since prior to 1870 time was not yet standardized across the country, Western Union developed its own time service.

1871 - Starting in February, Western Union’s network grew exponentially, allowing customers to send money between New York, Chicago and Boston using the Western Union money transfer services.

1874 – Thomas Edison developed the Quadruplex system, which allowed for four messages to be transmitted simultaneously using the same wire.

 

1877 – The nation's tallest building was built by Western Union. It had a time ball at the top, which dropped at noon on a signal telegraphed from the United States Naval Observatory.

1879 – Western Union briefly dabbled in the telephone field when it attempted to launch a rival telephony system before settling a patent lawsuit with Bell. After it lost a legal battle with Bell Telephone in 1879, it ceased pursuing telephone technology and concentrated solely on telegraphy.

1881 – Financier Jay Gould orchestrated a merger of the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company with Western Union. By doing so, he ended up with a controlling share of the merged company.

1883 – Overall, the public considered Western Union to oversee the most reliable regulation of time. In 1883, the official start of Standard Railway Time was signaled from the descent of the Western Union time ball.

1884 – Western Union gradually absorbed more than 500 telegraph companies throughout the nation, growing so much by 1884 that it was included in the original 11 stocks tracked in the first Dow-Jones Average. When the Dow Jones Railroad Average stock market index for the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) was created in 1884, Western Union was one of the original eleven companies to be included.

1893 telegram about astronomical event

1900 –a Western Union operated a million miles of telegraph lines and two international undersea cables.

 

In my recent book, Jocelyn’s Wedding Dilemma, one chapter in particular involves numerous exchanges of telegrams. This book is available for sale in ebook and paperback, plus it is also available at no additional cost with a Kindle Unlimited subscription. To find the book description and purchase options, please CLICKHERE

 

 

In next book, just barely announced, is Wyatt’s New Bride, is now on pre-order and will be released on September 26, 2024. To find the book description and purchase options, please CLICK HERE

 

 

 

Sources:

https://www.zippia.com/western-union-careers-11543/history/#

https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/telegraph

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Union

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegraphy