James Douglas Reid was a Scotsman who became general superintendent of the Magnetic Telegraph Company of which Amos Kendall was president in 1846. The Magnetic line linked Fort Lee to Philadelphia. Among those who incorporated the line was Samuel Morse. Reid was also superintendent of the Lake Erie Telegraph Company, and the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati & Louisville Telegraph Company. He wrote a detailed history of the telegraph industry
References
- Robert Luther Thompson, Wiring a Continent: The History of the Telegraph Industry in the United States 1832-1866, Princeton University Press, 1947.
- James D. Reid, The Telegraph In America, Its Founders Promoters and Noted Men