Morse signal receiver. An electrical telegraph was developed and patented in the United States in 1837 by Samuel Morse. His assistant, Alfred Vail, developed the Morse code signaling alphabet with Morse. At the Speedwell Ironworks in Morristown, New Jersey on January 11, 1838, Morse and Vail made the first public demonstration of the electric telegraph. Although Morse and Alfred Vail had done most of the research and development in the ironworks facilities, they chose a nearby factory house as the demonstration site. Without the repeater, the range of the telegraph was limited to two miles, and the inventors had pulled two miles of wires inside the factory house through an elaborate scheme. The first public transmission, with the message, "A patient waiter is no loser", was witnessed by a mostly local crowd. The Morse/Vail telegraph was quickly deployed; the overland telegraph connected the west coast of the continent to the east coast by October 24, 1861, bringing an end to the Pony Express.