[RP TownTalk] Charles Benedict Calvert, Riversdale & the telegraph

[ABragg7393 at aol.com]

The old Town of Riverdale Book, 1970 mentions the diary of Harold Burrhus  
and states that "The former Burrhus residence still stands on Ravenswood  
Rd.  Harold Burrhus' friend, William Meyer, lived diagonally across the  
street.  Harold's ingenuity was evident when he ran a telegraph line  connecting 
the two houses/.  At times they used it for pre bedtime  conversation."  (I 
believe Em lives in that house and her son owns the  other one.  I think at 
one time she told me the wires were still up there  in the attic)  So Emily, 
let's hear the history of the first telegraph in  Riverdale Park!
 
 
In a message dated 5/5/2009 11:11:33 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
dwightrholmes at gmail.com writes:

RE the  first telegraph, this is the version I'd read and heard  before:
http://www.hmdb.org/Marker.asp?Marker=6072
(That's the text of  the historical marker at Bladensburg Waterfront)

On some belated and  not-so-profound reflection, it seems that Mr Weber
must of course be wrong.  Since they didn't have WiFi in the day,
presumably the first telegraph must  have been sent from where the
wires were laid - and those would have been  next to the RxR tracks -
not on the property of the mansion.  So, yes,  "near the mansion" but
not "from" the mansion.

That being said, I'm  glad to know of Mr Calvert's role in getting
funding for the telegraph  project. He obviously had appreciation for
things like science, education,  infrastructure...

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 10:25 AM, Dwight Holmes  <dwightrholmes at gmail.com> 
wrote:
> OK, this passage comes from the  draft of a
> never-finished/never-published book by George O. Weber who  was the
> Director of Physical Plant for the University of Maryland at  the
> College Park campus from 1946 until 1972.  I got that info  from here:
> http://cgl-md.com/gow.html
>
> On Tue, May 5,  2009 at 10:16 AM, Dwight Holmes <dwightrholmes at gmail.com> 
 wrote:
>> poking around dusty corners of the Internet for references  to the Old
>> Post Road and Washington-Baltimore Turnpike, I came  across this very
>> interesting book that someone has put on line.  It's not clear what the
>> title or who the author is, but it is a  history of what is now the
>> University of Maryland.  I found  this passage interesting, for I've
>> not previously heard this  historical claim for the role of Calvert and
>> Riversdale in the  history of the telegraph.
>>
>>  http://cgl-md.com/GOWbookUMD.pdf
>>
>> "By all accounts, the  hardest working and most influential planner was
>> Charles Benedict  Calvert of Prince George’s County. A descendant of the
>> Lords  Baltimore and a graduate of the University of Virginia, Calvert  
had
>> returned from school to manage his father’s 2,200 acre  “Riversdale” 
estate.
>> An advocate of the newly popular scientific  approach to farming, he 
helped
>> gain national attention for the  plantation by use of machines, 
fertilizers,
>> irrigation and  experimental crops. He also helped the struggling Samuel
>> Morse get  congressional backing for his experimental telegraph, and the 
 first
>> successful message was sent from his mansion, which still  stands on
>> Riverdale road about 2 1/2 miles from the University. A  president of the
>> Maryland Agricultural Society, a leader in the  United States 
Agricultural
>> Society, he had earlier offered to  donate 200 acres to endow a national
>> college of agriculture. He  served in the state legislature and in 1861 
in
>> congress, where he  led the fight to establish the United States Bureau 
of
>>  Agriculture, the forerunner of the present Department of Agriculture.  
The
>> first to advocate the cause of the Maryland Agricultural  College, the 
most
>> persistent in pleading for its support, Calvert  would provide the 
college with
>> a home, supervise the initial  construction and later serve as its second
>> president. Wealthy and  well educated, he was a “patrician in the finest
>> Jeffersonian  tradition,” as were most of his fellow founders. And he, 
like
>>  they, believed that science and education held solutions for the 
problems  of
>> impoverished  farmers."
>>
>
>
_______________________________________________
TownTalk  mailing list
To post to the list, send mail to  TownTalk at riverdale-park.org
TownTalk-request at riverdale-park.org is for  automated subscription 
processing  only
http://riverdale-park.org/mailman/listinfo/towntalk

For more  information about Riverdale Park, visit  
http://www.riverdaleparkmd.info

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://riverdale-park.org/pipermail/towntalk/attachments/20090505/37d73534/attachment-0002.html>