Left: Florida Center for Instructional Technology While we’re not 100% certain what the battery was used for, we think it’s from a telegraph. The telegraph, which reached the western United States in the early 1860s, was the first commercial use of electricity in this country. Fort Union had much better communications than most frontier forts. Being on the Santa Fe Trail and serving as the supply hub for more than 45 other forts, Fort Union had regular mail service and a telegraph office. In the diagram pictured, the zinc electrode at the top (our mystery artifact) functioned as the negative terminal, releasing electrons that flowed through the solution inside the battery to the copper electrode at the bottom. The copper electrode functioned as the positive terminal and sent the electrons through the telegraph wire to power the communications. This type of battery was known as a gravity cell, and was an improvement over earlier batteries, which emitted toxic fumes. |
Last updated: January 23, 2021