The speed of the printing telegraph was 16 and a half words per minute, but messages still required translation into English by live copyists. Chemical telegraphy came to an end in the US in 1851, when the Morse group defeated the Bain patent in the US District Court.

Although the telegraph that Samuel F. B. Morse successfully tested in 1837 is no longer in use today, its fall did give rise to many other forms of long distance communication. For example, wireless telegraphy, also known as radiotelegraphy or radio, is still a very important part of society.

Wires allowed an electric current to flow as far as the wires stretched. However, they were usually broken at stations or towns, where message recipients were located. The message was forwarded on from that point.

Prior to the invention of the telegraph, long distance communication was as slow as the horse which carried it; the Pony Express could deliver a message across America in roughly 10 days.

In 1860, for example, a ten-word telegram sent from New York to New Orleans cost $2.70 (about $65 in 2012 currency). When the transcontinental telegraph opened, the cost was $7.40 for ten words (about $210), while a ten word transatlantic message to England cost $100 (about $2,600).

In the United States, Western Union shut down its telegraph service in 2006. At the time, the company reported that only about 20,000 telegrams were sent in the previous year.

Western Union had its beginnings in 1851 in Rochester. Messages were transmitted by Morse code over wire, then hand-delivered by a courier. Ten years later, the company completed the first transcontinental telegraph line. At the height of business in 1929, more than 200 million telegrams were sent around the world.

Western Union closed its telegraphy service a decade ago. (“The last 10 telegrams included birthday wishes, condolences on the death of a loved one, notification of an emergency, and several people trying to be the last to send a telegram,” the Associated Press reported of the closure in 2006.)

Sent by inventor Samuel F.B. Morse on May 24, 1844, over an experimental line from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, the message said: “What hath God wrought?” Taken from the Bible, Numbers 23:23, and recorded on a paper tape, the phrase had been suggested to Morse by Annie Ellsworth, the young daughter of a friend.

Today, American Morse code is nearly extinct. A few amateur radio users and Civil War re-enactors still keep it alive. Pilots were required to know how to communicate using Morse code up until the 1990s. Today Morse code is primarily used among amateur radio users.

1977

The earliest true telegraph put into widespread use was the optical telegraph of Claude Chappe, invented in the late 18th century. The system was extensively used in France, and European countries controlled by France, during the Napoleonic era.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s the use of telegrams had dropped significantly, with around 10 million sent annually in the mid-1960s. Consequently, the Post Office took the decision in 1977 to abolish the service.

Come July 15, one of India’s oldest communication services — the telegram — will become history.

Telegrams disappeared in the UK in 1982 and these days even centenarians only get a card from the Queen; Western Union abandoned its telegram service in the US in 2006; and this weekend India, bastion of the last great telegraphy service thanks to the government’s traditional devotion to sending telegrams, follows suit …

Telegram popularity in select countries

Telegrams may be sent by using special telephone number or directly at the post office. Telegrams are delivered on the same day for recipients in territories covered by post offices with telegram delivery service and are delivered as regular mail for post offices which do not have telegram delivery service.

The last telegraph message sent exclusively by land line was sent in mid-1963, and the final message using a land line for any section of its passage was sent in 1964. By 1975 telegram usage had halved from its 1945 level.

The telegraph line also opened up the centre of the continent. Within a year of its construction gold was being mined around Pine Creek (near Katherine) and within 10 years the cattle industry had been established in the Northern Territory.

You can send a telegram at the iTelegram website:

• Choose “Send a telegram” from the main menu.
• Select the destination country to see price and delivery details.
• Enter the destination address and your message.
• Pay using the secure payment system.
• Your telegram gets delivered right to the door.

Telegram is owned by the same two people who founded the company in Russia back in 2013, Pavel Durov and his brother Nikolai. Pavel is also the company’s CEO. Telegram is Pavel’s continuation of the online free-speech efforts that started with VK. The company is registered in the U.S. as an LLC.