Is the term “ham” older than we thought?

My friend, Jack, WT8N, ran across an article on the history of his hometown, Mattawan, MI, while going through some papers his mother left him. Mattawan, in southwest MI, was established in 1839 as a railroad depot. Shortly after, a telegraph station was set up, and after that, a school for training telegraph operators. In the article, they refer to the school as a “ham factory.”

I  think that the story lends credence to the origin of the word “ham operator” as being a poor, or “ham fisted” operator, and it appears that the term  is even older than we think.

When I posted this to slowspeedwire, a mailing list for members of the Morse Telegraph Club, J. Chris Hausler noted that the term “ham” was used in a 1901/1902 McClure’s magazine article describing “hog Morse.” Apparently, some operators, often called “hams,” would omit spaces between characters or not allow for enough space between characters when sending messages. For example, the word “home” would become “hog” by leaving out the space between the last two characters.

This being the case, I suppose that it was natural for professional telegraphers, be they landline telegraphers or radiotelegraphers, to call radio hobbyists “hams,” as I’m sure that many of the hobbyists’ fists were not as polished as as the professionals.

UPDATE 10/21/23

The Solder Smoke folks have an image of a page from the December 14, 1895 issue of The Railroad Telegrapher that lends credence to this explanation.