She was married to Jedediah Morse in 1789, and was noted as a calm,
judicious, and thinking woman, with a will of her own. When the child,
Samuel F.B. Morse, was four years old he was sent to school to an old
lady within a few hundred yards of the parsonage. She was an invalid,
unable to leave her chair, and governed her unruly flock with a long
rattan which reached across the small room in which it was gathered. One
of her punishments was pinning the culprit to her own dress, and Morse
remarks that his first attempts at drawing were discouraged in this
fashion. Perhaps the fact that he selected the old lady's face as a
model had something to do with it. At the age of seven he was sent to
school at Andover, where he was fitted for entering Phillips Academy,
and prepared here for Yale, joining the class of 1807. When he was
thirteen years old, at Andover, he wrote a sketch of Demosthenes and
sent it to his father, by whom it was preserved as a mark of the
learning and taste of the child. Dr. Timothy Dwight was then president
of Yale and a warm friend of the elder Morse. Finley Morse, as he was
then known, received therefore the deep personal interest of Dr. Dwight.
Jeremiah Day was professor of natural philosophy in Yale College, and
under his instruction Morse began the study of electricity, receiving
perhaps those impressions that were destined to produce so great an
influence upon him and, through him, upon this century. Professor Day
was then young and ardent in the pursuit of science, kindling readily
the enthusiasm of his students. He afterward became president of the
college. There was at the same time in the faculty Benjamin Silliman,
who was professor of chemistry, and near whom Morse resided for several
years. Years afterward the testimony of Professors Day and Silliman was
given in court, when it was important, in the defence of his claim to
priority in the invention of the telegraph. Through them Morse was able
to show that he was early interested in the study of chemistry and
electricity. During this litigation Morse did not know that there were
scores of letters, written by him as a young student to his father,
among the papers of Dr Jedediah Morse, that would have shown
conclusively his interest and aptitude in these studies. The papers
were brought to light when the life of Morse by Prime came to be
written.
The first part of Morse's life was devoted to art. At a very early age
he showed his taste in this direction, and at the age of fifteen painted
a fairly good picture in water colors of a room in his father's house,
with his parents, himself, and two brothers around a table. This picture
used to hang in his home in New York by the side of his last painting.
From that time his desire to become an artist haunted him through his
collegiate life. In February, 1811, he painted a picture, now in the
office of the mayor of Charlestown, Mass., depicting the landing of the
Pilgrims at Plymouth, which, with a landscape painted at about the same
time, decided his father, by the advice of Stuart, to permit him to
visit Europe with Washington Allston. He bore letters to West and to
Copley, from both of whom he received the kindest attention and
encouragement.
As a test for his fitness for a place as student in the Royal Academy,
Morse made a drawing from a small cast of the Farnese Hercules. He took
this to West, who examined the drawing carefully and handed it back,
saying: "Very well, sir, very well; go on and finish it." "It is
finished," said the expectant student. "Oh, no," said the president.
"Look here, and here, and here," pointing out many unfinished places
which had escaped the eye of the young artist. Morse quickly observed
the defects, spent a week in further perfecting his drawing, and then
took it to West, confident that it was above criticism. The venerable
president of the Academy bestowed more praise than before and, with a
pleasant smile, handed it back to Morse, saying: "Very well, indeed,
sir. Go on and finish it." "Is it not finished?" inquired the almost
discouraged student. "See," said West, "you have not marked that muscle,
nor the articulation of the finger-joints." Three days more were spent
upon the drawing, when it was taken back to the implacable critic. "Very
clever, indeed," said West; "very clever. Now go on and finish it." "I
cannot finish it," Morse replied, when the old man, patting him on the
shoulder, said: "Well, I have tried you long enough. Now, sir, you have
learned more by this drawing than you would have accomplished in double
the time by a dozen half-finished beginnings. It is not many drawings,
but the character of one which makes a thorough draughtsman. Finish one
picture, sir, and you are a painter."
Morse heeded this advice. He went to work with Allston, and encouraged
by the veteran, Copley, he began upon a large picture for exhibition in
the Royal Academy, choosing as his subject "The Dying Hercules." He
modelled his figure in clay, as the best of the old painters did. It was
his first attempt in the sculptor's art. The cast was made in plaster
and taken to West, who was delighted with it. This model contended for
the prize of a gold medal offered by the Society of Arts for the best
original cast of a single figure, and won it. In the large room of the
London Adelphi, in the presence of the British nobility, foreign
ambassadors, and distinguished strangers, the Duke of Norfolk publicly
presented the medal to Morse on May 13, 1813. At the same time the
painting from this model, then on exhibition at the Royal Academy,
received great praise from the critics, who placed "The Dying Hercules"
among the first twelve pictures in a collection of almost two thousand.
This was an extraordinary success for so young a man, and Morse
determined to try for the highest prize offered by the Royal Academy for
the best historical composition, the decision to be made in 1815. For
that purpose he produced his "Judgment of Jupiter" in July of that year.
West assured him that it would take the prize, but Morse was unable to
comply with the rules of the Academy, which required the victor to
receive the medal in person. His father had summoned him home. West
urged the Academy to make an exception in his case, but it could not be
done, and the young painter had to be contented with his assurances that
he would certainly have won the prize (a gold medal and $250) had he
remained.
West was always kind to Americans, and Morse was a favorite with him.
One day, when the venerable painter was at work upon his great picture,
"Christ Rejected," after carefully examining Morse's hands and noting
their beauty, he said: "Let me tie you with this cord and take that
place while I paint in the hands of the Saviour." This was done, and
when he released the young artist, he said to him: "You may now say, if
you please, that you had a hand in this picture." A number of noted
English artists--Turner, Northcote, Sir James Lawrence, Flaxman--and
literary men--Coleridge, Wordsworth, Rogers, and Crabbe among them--were
attracted by young Morse's proficiency and pleasant manners, and when in
August, 1815, he packed his picture, "The Judgment of Jupiter," and
sailed for home, he bore with him the good wishes of some of England's
most distinguished men.
When Morse reached Boston, although but twenty-four years old, he found
that fame had preceded him. His prestige was such that he set up his
easel with high hopes and fair prospects for the future, both destined
soon to be dispelled. The taste of America had not risen to the
appreciation of historical pictures. His original compositions and his
excellent copies of the masterpieces of the Old World excited the
admiration of cultured people, but no orders were given for them. He
left Boston almost penniless after having waited for months for
patronage, and determined to try to earn his bread by painting the
portraits of people in the rural districts of New England, where his
father's name was a household word. During the autumn of 1816 and the
winter of 1816-1817 he visited several towns in New Hampshire and
Vermont, painting portraits in Walpole, Hanover, Windsor, Portsmouth,
and Concord. He received the modest sum of $15 for each portrait. From
Concord, N.H., he writes to his parents: "I am still here (August 16th)
and am passing my time very agreeably. I have painted five portraits at
$15 each, and have two more engaged and many talked of. I think I shall
get along well. I believe I could make an independent fortune in a few
years if I devoted myself exclusively to portraits, so great is the
desire for good portraits in the different country towns." He doubtless
was candid when he wrote that he was "passing his time in Concord very
agreeably," for it was here that he met Lucretia P. Walker, who was
accounted the most beautiful and accomplished young lady of the town,
whom Morse subsequently married. She was a young woman of great personal
loveliness and rare good sense. The young artist was attracted by her
beauty, her sweetness of temper, and high intellectual qualities. All
the letters that she wrote to him before and after their marriage he
carefully preserved, and these are witnesses to her intelligence,
education, tenderness of feeling, and admirable fitness to be the wife
of such a man. Gradually Morse's portraits became so much in demand that
he was enabled to increase his price to $60, and as he painted four a
week upon the average, and received a good deal of money during a tour
in the South, he was enabled to return to New England in 1818 with
$3,000, and to marry Miss Walker on October 6th of that year.
The first years of Morse's married life were passed in Charleston, S.C.,
after which he returned to New England, and having laid by some little
capital, he took up again what he deemed to be his real vocation--the
painting of great historical pictures. His first venture in this
direction was an exhibition picture of the House of Representatives at
Washington. As a business venture it was disastrous, and resulted in the
loss of eighteen months of precious time. It was finally sold to an
Englishman. Then began Morse's life in New York. Through the influence
of Isaac Lawrence he obtained a commission from the city authorities of
New York to paint a full-length portrait of Lafayette, who was then in
this country. He had just completed his study from life in Washington in
February, 1825, when he received the news of the death of his wife. A
little more than a year afterward both his father and mother died.
Thenceforward his children and art absorbed his affections.
He was an artist, heart and soul, and his professional brethren soon had
good reason to be grateful to him. The American Academy of Fine Arts,
then under the presidency of Colonel John Trumbull, was in a languishing
state and of little use to artists. The most advanced of its members
felt the need of relief, and a few of them met at Morse's rooms to
discuss their troubles. At that meeting Morse proposed the formation of
a new society of artists, and at a meeting held at the New York
Historical Society's rooms the "New York Drawing Association" was
organized, with Morse as its president. Trumbull endeavored to compel
the new society to profess allegiance to the academy, but Morse
protested, and thanks to his advice, on January 18, 1826, a new art
association was organized under the name of the "National Academy of
Design." Morse was its first president, and for sixteen years he was
annually elected to that office. The friends of the old academy were
wrathful and assailed the new association. A war of words, in which
Morse acted as the champion of the new society, was waged until victory
was conceded to the reformers. Thus Morse inaugurated a new era in the
history of the fine arts in this country. He wrote, talked, lectured
incessantly for the advancement of art and the Academy of Design.
[Illustration: Under Side of a Modern Switchboard, showing 2,000 Wires.]
In 1829 Morse made a second visit to Europe, where he was warmly
welcomed and honored by the Royal Academy. During three years or more
he lived in continental cities, studying the Louvre in Paris and making
of the famous gallery an exhibition picture which contained about fifty
miniatures of the works in that collection. In November, 1832, he was
back again in New York, with high hopes as to his future. Allston,
writing to Dunlap in 1834, said: "I rejoice to hear your report of
Morse's advance in his art. I know what is in him perhaps better than
anyone else. If he will only bring out all that is there he will show
parts that many now do not dream of."
For several years the thoughts of the artist Morse had been busy with a
matter wholly outside of his chosen domain. Some lectures on
electro-magnetism by his intimate friend, Judge Freeman Dana, given at
the Athenæum while Morse was also lecturing there on the fine arts, had
greatly interested him in the subject, and he learned much in
conversation with Dana. While on his second visit to Europe Morse made
himself acquainted with the labors of scientific men in their endeavors
to communicate intelligence between far-distant places by means of
electro-magnetism, and he saw an electro-magnet signalling instrument in
operation. He knew that so early as 1649 a Jesuit priest had prophesied
an electric telegraph, and that for half a century or more students had
partially succeeded in attempts of this kind. But no practical telegraph
had yet been invented. In 1774 Le Sage made an electro-signalling
instrument with twenty-four wires, one for each letter of the alphabet.
In 1825 Sturgeon invented an electro-magnet. In 1830 Professor Henry
increased the magnetic force that Morse afterward used.
On board the ship Sully, in which Morse sailed from Havre to New York,
in the autumn of 1832, the recent discovery in France of the means of
obtaining an electric spark from a magnet was a favorite topic of
conversation among the passengers, and it was during the voyage that
Morse conceived the idea of an electro-magnetic and chemical recording
telegraph. Before he reached New York he had made drawings and
specifications of his conception, which he exhibited to his fellow
passengers. Few great inventions that have made their authors immortal
were so completely grasped at inception as this. Morse was accustomed to
keep small note-books in which to make records of his work, and scores
of these books are still in existence. As he sat upon the deck of the
Sully, one night after dinner, he drew from his pocket one of these
books and began to make marks, to represent letters and figures to be
produced by electricity at a distance. The mechanism by which the
results were to be reached was wrought out by slow and laborious
thought, but the vision as a whole was clear. The current of electricity
passed instantaneously to any distance along a wire, but the current
being interrupted, a spark appeared. This spark represented one sign;
its absence another; the time of its absence still another. Here are
three signs to be combined into the representation of figures or
letters. They can be made to form an alphabet. Words may thus be
indicated. A telegraph, an instrument to record at a distance, will
result. Continents shall be crossed. This great and wide sea shall be no
barrier. "If it will go ten miles without stopping," he said, "I can
make it go around the globe."
He worked incessantly all that next day and could not sleep at night in
his berth. In a few days he submitted some rough drafts of his invention
to William C. Rives, of Virginia, who was returning from Paris, where he
had been minister of the United States. Mr. Rives suggested various
difficulties, over which Morse spent several sleepless nights,
announcing in the morning at breakfast-table the new devices by which he
proposed to accomplish the task before him. He exhibited a drawing of
the instrument which he said would do the work, and so completely had he
mastered all the details that five years afterward, when a model of this
instrument was constructed, it was instantly recognized as the one he
had devised and drawn in his sketch-book and exhibited to his fellow
passengers on the ship. In view of subsequent claims made by a fellow
passenger to the honor of having suggested the telegraph, these details
are interesting and important.
[Illustration: The First Telegraphic Instrument, as Exhibited in 1837 by
Morse.]
Circumstances delayed the construction of a recording telegraph by
Morse, but the subject slumbered in his mind. During his absence abroad
he had been elected professor of the literature of the arts of design,
in the University of the City of New York, and this work occupied his
attention for some time. Three years afterward, in November, 1835, he
completed a rude telegraph instrument--the first recording apparatus;
but it embodied the mechanical principle now in use the world over. His
whole plan was not completed until July, 1837, when by means of two
instruments he was able to communicate from as well as to a distant
point. In September hundreds of people saw the new instrument in
operation at the university, most of whom looked upon it as a scientific
toy constructed by an unfortunate dreamer. The following year the
invention was sufficiently perfected to enable Morse to direct the
attention of Congress to it and ask its aid in the construction of an
experimental line between Washington and Baltimore.
Late in the long session of 1838 he appeared before that body with his
instrument. Before leaving New York with it he had invited a few friends
to see it work. Now began in the life of Morse a period of years during
which his whole time was devoted to convincing the world, first, that
his electric telegraph would really communicate messages, and, secondly,
that if it worked at all, it was of great practical value. Strange to
say that this required any argument at all. But that in those days it
did may be inferred from the fact that Morse could then find no help far
or near. His invention was regarded as interesting, but of no importance
either scientifically or commercially. In Washington, where he first
went, he found so little encouragement that he went to Europe with the
hope of drawing the attention of foreign governments to the advantages,
and of securing patents for the invention; he had filed a caveat at the
Patent Office in this country. His mission was a failure. England
refused him a patent, and France gave him only a useless paper which
assured for him no special privileges. He returned home disappointed but
not discouraged, and waited four years longer before he again attempted
to interest Congress in his invention.
[Illustration: The Modern Morse Telegraph.]
This extraordinary struggle lasted twelve years, during which, with his
mind absorbed in one idea and yet almost wholly dependent for bread upon
his profession as an artist, it was impossible to pursue art with the
enthusiasm and industry essential to success. His situation was forlorn
in the extreme. The father of three little children, now motherless, his
pecuniary means exhausted by his residence in Europe, and unable to
pursue art without sacrificing his invention, he was at his wits' ends.
He had visions of usefulness by the invention of a telegraph that should
bring the continents of the earth into intercourse. He was poor and knew
that wealth as well as fame was within his reach. He had long received
assistance from his father and brothers when his profession did not
supply the needed means of support for himself and family; but it seemed
like robbery to take the money of others for experiments, the success of
which he could not expect them to believe in until he could give
practical evidence that the instrument would do the work proposed. It
was the old story of genius contending with poverty. His brothers
comforted, encouraged, and cheered him. In the house of his brother
Richard he found a home and the tender care that he required. Sidney,
the other brother, also helped him. On the corner of Nassau and Beekman
Streets, now the site of the handsome Morse Building, his brothers
erected a building where were the offices of the newspaper of which they
were the editors and proprietors. In the fifth story of this building a
room was assigned to him which was for several years his studio,
bedroom, parlor, kitchen, and workshop. On one side of the room stood a
little cot on which he slept in the brief hours which he allowed himself
for repose. On the other side stood his lathe with which the inventor
turned the brass apparatus necessary in the construction of his
instruments. He had, with his own hands, first whittled the model; then
he made the moulds for the castings. Here were brought to him, day by
day, crackers and the simplest food, by which, with tea prepared by
himself, he sustained life while he toiled incessantly to give being to
the idea that possessed him.
[Illustration: Morse Making his own Instrument.
(From Prime's Life of Morse.)]
Before leaving for Europe he had suffered a great disappointment as an
artist. The government had offered to American artists, to be selected
by a committee of Congress, commissions to paint pictures for the panels
in the rotunda of the Capitol. Morse was anxious to be employed upon one
or more of them. He was the president of the National Academy of Design,
and there was an eminent fitness in calling him to this national work.
Allston urged the appointment of Morse. John Quincy Adams, then a
member of the House and on the committee to whom this subject was
referred, submitted a resolution in the House that foreign artists be
allowed to compete for these commissions, and in support alleged that
there were no American artists competent to execute the paintings. This
gave great and just offence to the artists and the public. A severe
reply to Adams appeared in the New York _Evening Post_. It was written
by James Fenimore Cooper, but it was attributed to Morse, whose pen was
well known to be skillful, and in consequence his name was rejected by
the committee. He never recovered fully from the effects of that blow.
Forty years afterward he could not speak of it without emotion. He had
consecrated years of his life to the preparation for just such work.
It was well for him and for his country and the world that the artist in
Morse was disappointed. From painter he became inventor, and from that
time until the world acknowledged the greatness and importance of his
invention he turned not back. His appointment as professor in the City
University entitled him to certain rooms in the University Building
looking out upon Washington Square, and here the first working models of
the telegraph were brought into existence.
"There," he says, "I immediately commenced, with very limited means, to
experiment upon my invention. My first instrument was made up of an old
picture or canvas frame fastened to a table; the wheels of an old
wooden clock, moved by a weight to carry the paper forward; three wooden
drums, upon one of which the paper was wound and passed over the other
two; a wooden pendulum suspended to the top piece of the picture or
stretching frame and vibrating across the paper as it passes over the
centre wooden drum; a pencil at the lower end of the pendulum, in
contact with the paper; an electro-magnet fastened to a shelf across the
picture or stretching frame, opposite to an armature made fast to the
pendulum; a type rule and type for breaking the circuit, resting on an
endless band, composed of carpet-binding, which passed over two wooden
rollers moved by a wooden crank.
[Illustration: Train Telegraph--the message transmitted by induction
from the moving train to the single wire.]
[Illustration: Interior of a Car on the Lehigh Valley Railroad, showing
the Method of Operating the Train Telegraph.]
"Up to the autumn of 1837 my telegraphic apparatus existed in so rude a
form that I felt a reluctance to have it seen. My means were very
limited--so limited as to preclude the possibility of constructing an
apparatus of such mechanical finish as to warrant my success in
venturing upon its public exhibition. I had no wish to expose to
ridicule the representative of so many hours of laborious thought. Prior
to the summer of 1837, at which time Mr. Alfred Vail's attention became
attracted to my telegraph, I depended upon my pencil for subsistence.
Indeed, so straitened were my circumstances that, in order to save time
to carry out my invention and to economize my scanty means, I had for
many months lodged and eaten in my studio, procuring my food in small
quantities from some grocery and preparing it myself. To conceal from my
friends the stinted manner in which I lived, I was in the habit of
bringing my food to my room in the evenings, and this was my mode of
life for many years."
Before the telegraph was actually tried and practised the cumbersome
piano-key board devised by Morse in his first experiments was done away
with and the simple device of a single key, with which we are all
familiar, was adopted. Meantime Morse was practically abandoning art.
His friends among the profession had subscribed $3,000 in order to
enable him to paint the picture he had in mind when he applied for the
government work at Washington, "The Signing of the First Compact on
Board the Mayflower," and he undertook the commission in 1838, only to
give it up in 1841 and to return to the subscribers the amount paid with
interest.
[Illustration: Diagram showing the Method of Telegraphing from a Moving
Train by Induction.]