From: "Bob Arnold" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Telegrams/Western Union

Western Union was in party the brainchild of Ezra Cornell, of DeRuyter in Madison County. Cornell ran an unsuccessful telegraph line through New York's Southern Tier in the mid-19th century, but then combined forces with another entrepreneur to form Western Union, just after the Civil War, I believe. There should be no dearth of literature.