page_title: Harriman station (Erie Railroad)
section_title: Charles Minot and the telegraph
hierarchical_section_title: Harriman station (Erie Railroad) / History / Charles Minot and the telegraph
caption_attribution_description: English: The former monument honoring Charles Minot at the Harriman Erie Railroad station.
context_page_description: Harriman Station, formerly known as Turner Station until 1910, was the first station on the Erie Railroad Main Line west of Newburgh Junction tower in Harriman, New York. Built on the side of Grove Street in Harriman, the station depot was constructed originally as Turner Station in 1838, as a three-story hotel-train station combination. This station caught fire in 1873 and was replaced by a one-story wooden structure. That structure survived as long as its predecessor before it began decaying and was replaced in 1911 with a new station on land donated by the widow of Edward Henry Harriman. A new one-story structure was built on the land. The station was maintained as a one-story depot with a large monument to the side dedicated to the work of Charles Minot. Minot was a director of the Erie Railroad who, in 1851, while his train was stopped at Turner, made the first railroad call by telegraph.
  The station depot remained in use by the Erie until October 1960, when that was folded into the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad, which itself would fold in April 1976, as it was absorbed into the Consolidated Rail Corporation.
context_section_description: In 1847, Ezra Cornell of Ithaca, New York worked to expand telegraphic communication through the New York and Lake Erie Railroad right-of-way with the Western Union Telegraph Company, saving a telegraph line he built from New York City to Fredonia. The new telegraph was an instant hit, and was commonly used for gossip and casual chatting. The then-superintendent of the New York and Lake Erie, Charles Minot, looked to expand this new technology with the railroad. He developed a system using telegraphs for train dispatches, for use when trains would want to pass one another along the line, such as at stations. Two-letter telegraph codes were designated, and the new modern system was set up. For the ten years of the new railroad's existence, passengers had been disgusted as trains waited for hours as another train had to pass them. This new system would relieve this issue.
  On September 22, 1851, Minot was in a parked passenger train at Turner Station. He glanced out the window of the train and saw the new telegraph wires. Departing the train, Minot ran into the station, got on the new telegraph, and wired the next station along the line, Monroe, to see if the eastbound train to Piermont-on-Hudson had gone past. The station agent said no. At that point, Minot ordered the engineer of the train to proceed on their way to Goshen. The engineer refused to take Minot's order, and instead, Minot got into the cab car himself and drove the train himself to Port Jervis, hours ahead of the planned scheduled time of arrival. This was the second of the several "firsts" the Erie Railroad created in its time, along with the shipment of milk by rail at Chester station in 1842. The use of the telegraph and Minot's system remained until 1888, when a new system of block signaling, developed by the competitor Pennsylvania Railroad, helped expand Minot's use of telecommunications to control rail traffic.
caption: The monolith that once held a plaque commemorating Charles Minot's 1851 achievement
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