1847 - 1863
| 1847 | |
|---|---|
| 11 February | Born in Milan, Ohio. |
| 1847–54 | |
| Lives in Milan. | |
| 1854–63 | |
| Lives in Port Huron, Mich. | |
| 1859–60 | |
| Winter | Starts selling newspapers and candy on the trains of the Grand Trunk Railroad. |
 1862 | |
| Spring | Publishes and prints on the train his own newspaper, the Weekly Herald. |
| Fall | Studies telegraphy with James Mackenzie, station agent at Mount Clemens, Mich. |
| 1862–63 | |
| Winter | Begins work as a telegraph operator in Micah Walker's book and jewelry store in Port Huron. |
| 1863 | |
| Late Spring– Summer | Starts job as a telegrapher for the Grand Trunk Railroad at Stratford Junction, Ontario. |
1863 - 1865
| 1863–64 | |
|---|---|
| Returns briefly to Port Huron. | |
| Works the night shift as a railroad telegrapher near Adrian, Mich., where he meets Ezra Gilliland for the first time. | |
| Works for two months as a railroad telegrapher in Fort Wayne, Ind. | |
| 1864–65 | |
| Fall–Winter | Works in the Indianapolis, Ind., office of the Western Union Telegraph Co. and experiments on improvements in telegraph repeaters. |
| 1865 | |
| Spring–Fall | Works in the Cincinnati, Ohio, office of Western Union. |
| Experiments on self-adjusting relays. | |
| 17 September | Becomes a founding member of the Cincinnati District of the National Telegraphic Union. |
| September | Is promoted to telegraph operator first class. |
| Begins designing devices for multiple telegraphy. | |
1865 - 1869
| 1865–66 | |
|---|---|
| Fall–Spring | Becomes the regular press-wire operator in the Memphis, Tenn., office of the South-Western Telegraph Co. |
| Conducts repeater experiments. | |
| 1866 | |
| Spring | Enters Western Union's Louisville, Ky., office as a press-wire operator. |
| 4 June | Transfers his membership in the National Telegraphic Union to the Louisville District. |
| 1 August | Leaves for New Orleans, La., planning to embark for Brazil. |
| 1866–67 | |
| Fall–Summer | Returns to the Western Union office in Louisville after a short stay in Port Huron. |
| 1867 | |
| Summer | Returns to the Western Union office in Cincinnati. |
| October | Returns to Port Huron. |
| 1868 | |
| March–April | Begins work as an operator at the main Western Union office in Boston, Mass. |
| 11 April | Publishes in the Telegrapher the first of several articles on his telegraph inventions and on the Boston telegraph community. |
| 11 July | Makes the first of several agreements with E. Baker Welch, a Boston businessman who helps finance his early inventive work. |
| 28 July | Signs a caveat for a fire alarm telegraph and assigns the invention to Welch. |
| 13 October | Signs a patent application for an electric vote recorder, which later issues as his first patent. |
| 1869 | |
| 21 January | Sells rights in his first successful printing telegraph, the Boston instrument, to Boston businessmen Joel Hills and William Plummer. |
| 30 January | Announces his resignation from his job with Western Union in order to devote himself full time to inventing and to pursuing various telegraph enterprises. |
| Winter–Spring | Joins Frank Hanaford in establishing a business to produce and sell private line telegraphs at 9 Wilson Lane in Boston. |
| 13 April | Tries and fails to make his new double transmitter work between Rochester, N.Y., and New York City. |
| April–May | Moves to New York City. |
| 22 June | Receives his first telegraph patent (for the Boston instrument). |
| c. 1 August | Replaces Franklin Pope as superintendent of Samuel Laws's Gold and Stock Reporting Telegraph Co. in New York City and makes improvements on Laws's stock printer. |
| 12 September | Moves to Elizabeth, N.J., and boards with Pope's mother. |
| 2 October | Joins his partners Pope and James Ashley in advertising their newly formed Pope, Edison & Co. as a firm of electrical engineers and telegraph contractors. |
| Fall | Operates a small shop in the electrical instrument factory of Leverett Bradley in Jersey City, N.J. |
1870
| 10 February | Signs two contracts with George Field and Elisha Andrews of the Gold and Stock Telegraph Co. that provide funds for developing inventions and establishing a shop. |
| c. 15 February | Joins William Unger in establishing his first major shop, the Newark Telegraph Works, in Newark, N.J. |
| 18 April | Joins Pope and Ashley in assigning to the Gold and Stock Telegraph Co. their rights to printing telegraph patents. |
| May | Engages Lemuel Serrell as patent attorney. |
| 1 July | Joins Pope, Ashley, Marshall Clifford Lefferts, and William Allen in establishing the American Printing Telegraph Co., an enterprise for providing private line telegraphs. |
| 3 August | Signs an agreement with Daniel Craig to invent an improved perforator for automatic telegraphy. |
| 1 October | Signs an agreement with George Harrington making them partners in the American Telegraph Works and providing Edison with funds for automatic telegraph experiments. |
| 19 October | Negotiates with Marshall Lefferts to sell his newly designed universal private line printer to Gold and Stock. |
| c. 26 October | Charles Batchelor begins employment at the American Telegraph Works. |
| 28 November | The Automatic Telegraph Co. is incorporated and Harrington is named president. |
| 1 December | Pope, Edison & Co. announces its dissolution. |
