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<DIV>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!</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>In a message dated 5/5/2009 11:11:33 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
dwightrholmes@gmail.com writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>RE the
first telegraph, this is the version I'd read and heard
before:<BR>http://www.hmdb.org/Marker.asp?Marker=6072<BR>(That's the text of
the historical marker at Bladensburg Waterfront)<BR><BR>On some belated and
not-so-profound reflection, it seems that Mr Weber<BR>must of course be wrong.
Since they didn't have WiFi in the day,<BR>presumably the first telegraph must
have been sent from where the<BR>wires were laid - and those would have been
next to the RxR tracks -<BR>not on the property of the mansion. So, yes,
"near the mansion" but<BR>not "from" the mansion.<BR><BR>That being said, I'm
glad to know of Mr Calvert's role in getting<BR>funding for the telegraph
project. He obviously had appreciation for<BR>things like science, education,
infrastructure...<BR><BR>On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 10:25 AM, Dwight Holmes
<dwightrholmes@gmail.com> wrote:<BR>> OK, this passage comes from the
draft of a<BR>> never-finished/never-published book by George O. Weber who
was the<BR>> Director of Physical Plant for the University of Maryland at
the<BR>> College Park campus from 1946 until 1972. I got that info
from here:<BR>> http://cgl-md.com/gow.html<BR>><BR>> On Tue, May 5,
2009 at 10:16 AM, Dwight Holmes <dwightrholmes@gmail.com>
wrote:<BR>>> poking around dusty corners of the Internet for references
to the Old<BR>>> Post Road and Washington-Baltimore Turnpike, I came
across this very<BR>>> interesting book that someone has put on line.
It's not clear what the<BR>>> title or who the author is, but it is a
history of what is now the<BR>>> University of Maryland. I found
this passage interesting, for I've<BR>>> not previously heard this
historical claim for the role of Calvert and<BR>>> Riversdale in the
history of the telegraph.<BR>>><BR>>>
http://cgl-md.com/GOWbookUMD.pdf<BR>>><BR>>> "By all accounts, the
hardest working and most influential planner was<BR>>> Charles Benedict
Calvert of Prince George’s County. A descendant of the<BR>>> Lords
Baltimore and a graduate of the University of Virginia, Calvert
had<BR>>> returned from school to manage his father’s 2,200 acre
“Riversdale” estate.<BR>>> An advocate of the newly popular scientific
approach to farming, he helped<BR>>> gain national attention for the
plantation by use of machines, fertilizers,<BR>>> irrigation and
experimental crops. He also helped the struggling Samuel<BR>>> Morse get
congressional backing for his experimental telegraph, and the
first<BR>>> successful message was sent from his mansion, which still
stands on<BR>>> Riverdale road about 2 1/2 miles from the University. A
president of the<BR>>> Maryland Agricultural Society, a leader in the
United States Agricultural<BR>>> Society, he had earlier offered to
donate 200 acres to endow a national<BR>>> college of agriculture. He
served in the state legislature and in 1861 in<BR>>> congress, where he
led the fight to establish the United States Bureau of<BR>>>
Agriculture, the forerunner of the present Department of Agriculture.
The<BR>>> first to advocate the cause of the Maryland Agricultural
College, the most<BR>>> persistent in pleading for its support, Calvert
would provide the college with<BR>>> a home, supervise the initial
construction and later serve as its second<BR>>> president. Wealthy and
well educated, he was a “patrician in the finest<BR>>> Jeffersonian
tradition,” as were most of his fellow founders. And he, like<BR>>>
they, believed that science and education held solutions for the problems
of<BR>>> impoverished
farmers."<BR>>><BR>><BR>><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>TownTalk
mailing list<BR>To post to the list, send mail to
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automated subscription processing
only<BR>http://riverdale-park.org/mailman/listinfo/towntalk<BR><BR>For more
information about Riverdale Park, visit
http://www.riverdaleparkmd.info</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>