Electricity was discovered in 1600 by William Gilbert and he gave it the name. Moore's law was discovered much later and defined how hard it was to progress any faster than what happened. A vacuum had to be created, then the Leyden jar and so on. The work of so many people working separately, who left their knowledge and names for others such as Ohm, Ampere, Volta and Faraday contributed to the slow progress. Tesla was instrumental in the creation of radio and he was post-Revolutionary war.
Perhaps if Gilbert had not written his original treatise in Latin, electricity may have come along faster.