Early life

Dyar grew up in Concord, Massachusetts

Concord, Massachusetts

Concord is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the town population was 17,668. Although a small town, Concord is noted for its leading roles in American history and literature.-History:...

. As a young man he initially made a living as an apprentice watchmaker

Watchmaker

A watchmaker is an artisan who makes and repairs watches. Since virtually all watches are now factory made, most modern watchmakers solely repair watches. However, originally they were master craftsmen who built watches, including all their parts, by hand...

, working for the Concord clockmaker

Clockmaker

A clockmaker is an artisan who makes and repairs clocks. Since almost all clocks are now factory-made, most modern clockmakers only repair clocks. Modern clockmakers may be employed by jewellers, antique shops, and places devoted strictly to repairing clocks and watches...

 Lemuel Curtis from 1818 to 1825. For many years he lived in Paris where he made a good living as a chemist. In 1858 he returned to America and settled in New York City. He married May 9, 1865.

Notability

Alfred Munroe in Concord and the Telegraph records that Dyar and his brother Joseph were interested in the newly developed technology of electricity. They came up with the idea of transmitting a message over electrical wire. Dyar experimented and finally concluded that he had discovered how a message could be transmitted over a single wire. In 1826 he and his brother laid a wire line along the "Causeway", later called Lowell Road and the Red Bridge Road, that proved the technique viable. According to Colonel William Whiting

William Whiting (politician)

William Whiting was a United States Representative from Massachusetts. He was born in Concord on March 3, 1813. He attended Concord Academy and graduated from Harvard University. He taught school in Plymouth and Concord. Whiting graduated from Harvard Law School in 1838. He was admitted to the...

 of Concord, the telegraph wire was strung from the trees along the Red Bridge Road over the Concord River at Hunt’s Bridge and went all the way to Curtis’s residence. Dyar used apothecary

Apothecary

Apothecary is a historical name for a medical professional who formulates and dispenses materia medica to physicians, surgeons and patients — a role now served by a pharmacist and some caregivers....

 vial jars as glass insulators for the bare iron wire.
Dyar erected the first telegraph line and dispatched over it the first telegraph message ever sent in America — as determined by Levi Woodbury

Levi Woodbury

Levi Woodbury was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, a U.S. Senator, Governor of New Hampshire and cabinet member in three administrations. He was the first Justice to have attended law school....

 of the Supreme Court of the United States

Supreme Court of the United States

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...

. Dyar had used over half a mile of bare electrical wire to transmit the message. He employed mechanical and electrical means that Samuel Morse used many years later for the telegraph system he patented in 1847. The author Munroe explains that Dyar made his telegraph line at least eighteen years before the actual materialization of the first practical Morse telegraph line that was made between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Maryland.

According to Munroe it was Dyar, not Morse, who erected the first real telegraph line at the race track in Long Island in 1826 and dispatched the first message ever sent. This was years prior to the joint patent of electric telegraphy by William Fothergill Cooke

William Fothergill Cooke

Sir William Fothergill Cooke was, with Charles Wheatstone, the co-inventor of the Cooke-Wheatstone electrical telegraph, which was patented in May 1837...

 and Charles Wheatstone

Charles Wheatstone

Sir Charles Wheatstone FRS , was an English scientist and inventor of many scientific breakthroughs of the Victorian era, including the English concertina, the stereoscope , and the Playfair cipher...

 taken out in 1837 in England. Alfred Munroe writes in his book "Concord and the Telegraph", This may seem strange to most of our readers. The credit of this great discovery has been generally conceded to Professor Morse, but the latter deserves credit only for combining and applying the discoveries of others. Dyar had erected his telegraph line some six years before Morse even began his investigation on telegraphy

Telegraphy

Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages via some form of signalling technology. Telegraphy requires messages to be converted to a code which is known to both sender and receiver...

 and some ten years before he began to talk about the subject. Because of threats with prosecution for "Conspiracy to send Secret Communications in advance of the Mail" Dyar abandoned his work.

Dyar’s telegraph technology

Dyar recorded the sparks generated by the electrical current of his telegraph on a ribbon of moistened litmus paper on a spool that revolved mechanically by a clockwork apparatus. The nitric acid

Nitric acid

Nitric acid , also known as aqua fortis and spirit of nitre, is a highly corrosive and toxic strong acid.Colorless when pure, older samples tend to acquire a yellow cast due to the accumulation of oxides of nitrogen. If the solution contains more than 86% nitric acid, it is referred to as fuming...

 that was formed on the litmus paper by the action of the electricity left appropriate legible small red marks for designated letters. Dyar’s method was of frictional electrolytic nature where Morse’s was an electromagnetic

Electromagnetism

Electromagnetism is one of the four fundamental interactions in nature. The other three are the strong interaction, the weak interaction and gravitation...

 usage.

Dyar’s early experiments using this method worked quite well. In fact his experiments proved his theory would work and impressed several investors. He was able to get an advanced loan in New-York to run a line at the Long Island race-course in 1827. Dyar then proposed to string a wire across New Jersey from New York to Philadelphia. However, the New Jersey legislature was skeptical on the issue because of security reasons. They even condemned Dyar as being dangerous because they thought he was some kind of a "wizard." They refused permission for this experiment of Dyar's because of fear of sending secret communications in advance of the mail.

There is an argument amongst historians that Morse got several of Dyar’s plans for the telegraph from him. Morse married the sister of one of Dyar’s associates named Charles Walker. Walker had worked with Dyar on the telegraph and had retained many of Dyar’s sketches. Historians speculate that either Charles Walker or his sister (Lucretia Pickering Walker) might well have shown those sketches to Morse. One idea supposedly "borrowed" was that Dyar used batteries and had the idea of sending electric impulses along a single wire. Dyar also had the idea of spacing the sparks in such a way as to form an alphabetic code and developed out this code years before Morse developed his Morse code

Morse code

Morse code is a method of transmitting textual information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment...

.

Later life

Dyar moved to Paris because of so much opposition to his telegraph technology. He was the father of Harrison Gray Dyar, Jr.

Harrison Gray Dyar, Jr.

Harrison Gray Dyar, Jr., born February 14, 1866 in New York City, died January 21, 1929, in Washington, D.C., was a son of Harrison Gray Dyar and his wife Eleonora Rosella . Dyar graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1889 with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry...