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��HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY.
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��ber 30th), the office was opened for business. The receiving and sending of messages was a mystery then to most people, some of whom adA^anced curious and crude ideas regarding " how the thing was done." Their curiosity was not alwaj'S gi^atified by the operators who not often sent them away confident they knew the whole matter, when, in fact, they had lis- tened to some grandly devised scheme, the in- vention of the operator's brain, who immensely enjoj' ed the joke.
At that date, operators who could read by sound were few. Dispatches were received on an old-fashioned Morse register, and run ofi" on paper by the yard. Mr. Hoyt saj's, if his mem- ory serves him right, the receipts were $G0 or $70 per month for the first months. As the business continued, and men saw the practical value of the telegraph, the revenue increased.
In the spring of 1848, the office was moved to North Main street, and put in an upper room, on the McFall corner. That spring," writes Mr. Hoyt, " Mr. Wade sent me a list of the stockholders in Mansfield, and enough money to pay a 2 per cent dividend on the stock. Mr. McFall held one share. I handed him $1, and asked him to receipt for it. He replied ' there must be some mistake about it.' I assured him there was not. He took the dol- lar, handed it to his son Gaylord, requesting him to have it framed, and to hang it up in his office, as it was the first cent of dividend he had ever received from any stock he ever held. The bill, on a Plainfield (N. J.) bank, was framed, and hung in the designated place. The next day, word came that the bank had failed, and the dividend was worth only the paper upon which it was written."
The office remained on the McFall corner during the year 1852 and part of 1853. In the spring of 1853, Mr. Hoyt went to the Cleveland office, and was succeeded by Thomas Beer, of Ashland, now deceased, a cousin of Judge Thomas Beer, of Crawford Countv. Not long
��after, the office was moAed from the McFall corner to a room in the Wiler House, near its north end. at the alley. B}- this time, the lines (m the railroads were in operation, and began rapidly to supersede all higliwa}- tele- graphs and to do a business commensurate with the times.
The Ohio & Pennsylvania Railroad was com- pleted as far as Crestline in April, 1853 ; a year or two after, to Fort Wa^ne, Indiana, and then on to Chicago. Such a road used the telegraph from its incipienc}-. Soon after the road was built, Mr. Thomas T. Eckert, then the Superin- tendent of the Wade lines, removed to Mans- field from Wooster. and his brother, W. H. Eckert, was placed in charge of the office. He resided here until 1858. During his resi- dence here the Wade lines were made a part of the present Western Union lines. Mr. Eckert became, in after 3'ears, a widely known man. He was of a positive nature, and well calculated to manage men. He removed to North Carolina in 1859, but on the commence- ment of the war returned North and offered his services to the Federal GQvernment. He was given prominent and responsible positions in the service of the Military' Telegraph, and was for a time also Assistant Secretar}- of War under Edwin M. Stanton. When President Lincoln and Secretary Seward met the emissaries of the Confederacy, in February, 1865, to see if a peaceful solution of the great conflict could not be brought about. IMr. Eckert was one of the part}', and was intrusted with an impor- tant mission. His trust was carried out with courteous dignity and delicac}'. and to the en- tire satisfaction of the Federal Grovernment. After the war closed, Mr. Eckert moved to New York, and assumed the responsible posi- tion of General Superintendent, of the East- ern division of the Western Union Telegraph Company, a position he occupied several years. He afterward became President of the Atlantic & Pacific Telegraph Company, and is
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