had discovered the method of fixing the image of the camera, which feat
was then creating a great sensation among scientific men. Professor
Morse was anxious to see the results of this discovery before leaving
Paris, and the American consul, Robert Walsh, arranged an interview
between the two inventors. Daguerre promised to send to Morse a copy of
the descriptive publication which he intended to make so soon as a
pension he expected from the French Government for the disclosure of his
discovery should be secured. He kept his promise, and Morse was probably
the first recipient of the pamphlet in this country. From the drawings
it contained he constructed the first photographic apparatus made in the
United States, and from a back window in the University Building he
obtained a good representation of the tower of the Church of the Messiah
on Broadway. This possesses an historical interest as being the first
photograph in America. It was on a plate the size of a playing-card.
With Professor J.W. Draper, in a studio built on the roof of the
University, he succeeded in taking likenesses of the living human face.
His subjects were compelled to sit fifteen minutes in the bright
sunlight, with their eyes closed, of course. Professor Draper shortened
the process and was the first to take portraits with the eyes open.
At the session of Congress of 1842-1843 Morse again appeared with his
telegraph, and on February 21, 1843, John P. Kennedy, of Maryland, moved
that a bill appropriating $30,000, to be expended, under the direction
of the Secretary of the Treasury, in a series of experiments for testing
the merits of the telegraph, should be considered. The proposal met with
ridicule. Johnson, of Tennessee, moved, as an amendment, that one-half
should be given to a lecturer on mesmerism, then in Washington, to try
mesmeric experiments under the direction of the Secretary of the
Treasury; and Mr. Houston said that Millerism ought to be included in
the benefits of the appropriation. After the indulgence of much cheap
wit, Mr. Mason, of Ohio, protested against such frivolity as injurious
to the character of the House and asked the chair to rule the amendments
out of order. The chair (John White, of Kentucky) ruled the amendments
in order because "it would require a scientific analysis to determine
how far the magnetism of the mesmerism was analogous to that to be
employed in telegraphy." This wit was applauded by peals of laughter,
but the amendment was voted down and the bill passed the House on
February 23d by the close vote of 89 to 83. In the Senate the bill met
with neither sneers nor opposition, but its progress was discouragingly
slow. At twilight on the last evening of the session (March 3, 1842)
there were one hundred and nineteen bills before it. It seemed
impossible for it to be reached in regular course before the hour of
adjournment should arrive, and Morse, who had anxiously watched the
dreary course of business all day from the gallery of the Senate
chamber, went with a sad heart to his hotel and prepared to leave for
New York at an early hour the next morning. His cup of disappointment
seemed to be about full. With the exception of Alfred Vail, a young
student in the University, through whose influence some money had been
subscribed in return for a one-fourth interest in the invention, and of
Professor L.D. Gale, who had shown much interest in the work and was
also a partner in the enterprise, Morse knew of no one who seemed to
believe enough in him and his telegraph to advance another dollar.
As he came down to breakfast the next morning a young lady entered and
came forward with a smile, exclaiming, "I have come to congratulate
you." "Upon what?" inquired the professor. "Upon the passage of your
bill," she replied. "Impossible! Its fate was sealed last evening. You
must be mistaken." "Not at all," answered the young lady, the daughter
of Morse's friend, the Commissioner of Patents, H.L. Ellsworth; "father
sent me to tell you that your bill was passed. He remained until the
session closed, and yours was the last bill but one acted upon, and it
was passed just five minutes before the adjournment. And I am so glad to
be able to be the first one to tell you. Mother says you must come home
with me to breakfast."
Morse, overcome by the intelligence, promised that his young friend, the
bearer of these good tidings, should send the first message over the
first line of telegraph that was opened.
He writes to Alfred Vail that day: "The amount of business before the
Senate rendered it more and more doubtful, as the session drew to a
close, whether the House bill on the telegraph would be reached, and on
the last day, March 3, 1843, I was advised by one of my Senatorial
friends to make up my mind for failure, as he deemed it next to
impossible that it could be reached before the adjournment. The bill,
however, was reached a few minutes before midnight and passed. This was
the turning point in the history of the telegraph. My personal funds
were reduced to the fraction of a dollar, and, had the passage of the
bill failed from any cause, there would have been little prospect of
another attempt on my part to introduce to the world my new invention."
The appropriation by Congress having been made, Morse went to work with
energy and delight to construct the first line of his electric
telegraph. It was important that it should be laid where it would
attract the attention of the government, and this consideration decided
the question in favor of a line between Washington and Baltimore. He had
as assistants Professor Gale and Professor J.C. Fisher. Mr. Vail was to
devote his attention to making the instruments and the purchase of
materials. Morse himself was general superintendent under the
appointment of the government and gave attention to the minutest
details. All disbursements passed through his hands. In point of
accuracy, the preservation of vouchers, and presentation of accounts,
General Washington himself was not more precise, lucid, and correct.
Ezra Cornell, afterward one of the most successful constructors of
telegraph lines, was employed to take charge of the work under Morse.
Much time and expense were lost in consequence of following a plan for
laying the wires in a leaden tube, and it was only when it was decided
to string them on posts that work began to proceed rapidly.
In expectation of the meeting of the National Whig Convention, May 1,
1844, to nominate candidates for President and Vice-President, energy
was redoubled, and by that time the wires were in working order
twenty-two miles from Washington toward Baltimore. The day before the
convention met, Professor Morse wrote to Vail that certain signals
should mean the nomination of a particular candidate. The experiment was
approaching its crisis. The convention assembled and Henry Clay was
nominated by acclamation to the Presidency. The news was conveyed on the
railroad to the point reached by the telegraph and thence instantly
transmitted over the wires to Washington. An hour afterward passengers
arriving at the capital, and supposing that they had brought the first
intelligence, were surprised to find that the announcement had been made
already and that they were the bearers of old news. The convention
shortly afterward nominated Frelinghuysen as Vice-President, and the
intelligence was sent to Washington in the same manner. Public
astonishment was great and many persons doubted that the feat could have
been performed. Before May had elapsed the line reached Baltimore.
[Illustration: Morse in his Study.
(From an old print.)]
On the 24th of May, 1844, Morse was prepared to put to final test the
great experiment on which his mind had been laboring for twelve anxious
years. Vail, his assistant, was at the Baltimore terminus. Morse had
invited his friends to assemble in the chamber of the United States
Supreme Court, where he had his instrument, from which the wires
extended to Baltimore. He had promised his young friend, Miss Ellsworth,
that she should send the first message over the wires. Her mother
suggested the familiar words of scripture (Numbers, xxiii. 23), "What
hath God wrought!" The words were chosen without consultation with the
inventor, but were singularly the expression of his own sentiment and
his own experience in bringing his work to successful accomplishment.
Perfectly religious in his convictions, and trained from earliest
childhood to believe in the special superintendence of Providence in the
minutest affairs of man, he had acted throughout the whole of his
struggles under the firm persuasion that God was working in him to do
His own pleasure in this thing.
The first public messages sent were a notice to Silas Wright in
Washington of his nomination to the office of Vice-President of the
United States by the Democratic convention, then in session (May, 1844)
in Baltimore, and his response declining it. Hendrick B. Wright, in a
letter written to Mr. B.J. Lossing, says: "As the presiding officer of
the body I read the despatch, but so incredulous were the members as to
the authority of the evidence before them that the convention adjourned
over to the following day to await the report of the committee sent over
to Washington to get _reliable_ information on the subject." Mr. Vail
kept a diary in those early days of the telegraph, full of interesting
reminiscences. It was often necessary, in order to convince incredulous
visitors to the office that the questions and replies sent over the wire
were not manufactured or agreed upon beforehand, to allow them to send
their own remarks. When the committee just mentioned by Mr. Wright
returned from Baltimore and confirmed the correctness of the report
given by telegraph, the new invention received a splendid advertisement.
The convention having reassembled in the morning, and the refusal of
Wright to accept the nomination having been communicated, a conference
was held between him and his friends through the medium of Morse's
wires. In Washington Mr. Wright and Mr. Morse were closeted with the
instrument; at Baltimore the committee of conference surrounded Vail
with his instrument. Spectators and auditors were excluded. The
committee communicated to Mr. Wright their reasons for urging his
acceptance. In a moment he received their communication in writing and
as quickly returned his answer. Again and again these confidential
messages passed, and the result was finally announced to the convention
that Mr. Wright was inflexible. Mr. Dallas then received the nomination
and accepted it. The ticket thus nominated was successful at the
election of that year. The original slips of paper on which some of the
early messages were written are still preserved, among others this
request: "As a rumor is prevalent here this morning that Mr. Eugene
Boyle was shot at Baltimore last evening, Professor Morse will confer a
great favor upon the family by making inquiry by means of his
electro-magnetic telegraph if such is the fact."
The telegraph was shown at first without charge. During the session of
1844-1845 Congress made an appropriation of $8,000 to keep it in
operation during the year, placing it under the supervision of the
Postmaster-General, who, at the close of the session, ordered a tariff
of charges of one cent for every four characters made through the
telegraph. Mr. Vail was appointed operator for the Washington station
and Mr. H.J. Rogers for Baltimore. This new order of things began April
1, 1845, the object being to test the profitableness of the enterprise.
The first day's income was one cent; on the fifth day twelve and a half
cents were received; on the seventh the receipts ran up to sixty cents;
on the eighth to one dollar and thirty-two cents; on the ninth to one
dollar and four cents. It is worthy of remark, as Mr. Vail notes, that
the business done after the tariff was fixed was greater than when the
service was gratuitous.
The telegraph was now a reality. Its completion was hailed with
enthusiasm, and the newspapers lauded the inventor to the skies.
Resolutions of thanks and applause were adopted by popular assemblies.
It was a favorite idea with Professor Morse, from the inception of his
enterprise, that the telegraph should belong to the government, and he
sent a communication to Congress making a formal offer. The overture was
not accepted, but the extension of the line from Baltimore to
Philadelphia and then to New York was only a work of time. The aid of
Congress was sought in vain. The appropriation of $8,000 was made, but
further than that the government declined to go. The sum named as the
price at which the Morse Company would sell the telegraph to the
government was $100,000. The subject was discussed in the report of Cave
Johnson, Postmaster-General under President Polk. He was a member of
Congress when the bill came up before the House appropriating $30,000
for the experimental line, and was one of those who ridiculed the whole
subject as unworthy of the notice of sensible men. As Postmaster-General
he said in his report, after the experiment had succeeded to the
satisfaction of mankind, that "the operation of a telegraph between
Washington and Baltimore had not satisfied him that under any rate of
postage that could be adopted its revenues could be made equal to its
expenditures." Such an opinion, with the evidence then in the possession
of the department, appears to be curious official blindness. But it was
fortunate for the inventor that the telegraph was left to the private
enterprise. Twenty-five years after the government had declined to take
the telegraph at the price of $100,000, a project was started to
establish lines of telegraph to be used by the government as part of the
mail postal system. And in 1873 the Postmaster-General, Mr. Cresswell,
said in his report that the entire first cost of all the lines in the
country, including patents, was less than $10,000,000; but the property
of the existing telegraph company was already well worth $50,000,000.
Morse's position was far easier than it had been for many years. His old
friends, the artists of New York, rallied in force and laid before
Congress a petition that the professor be employed to execute the
painting to fill the panel at the Capitol assigned to Inman, who had
been removed by death. But it came to nothing. Morse was never again to
take the brush in hand. The first money that he received from his
invention was the sum of $47, being his share of the amount paid for the
right to use his patent on a short line from the Washington Post-office
to the National Observatory. The use he made of the money was
characteristic of the man. He sent it to the Rev. Dr. Sprole, then a
pastor in Washington, requesting him to apply it for the benefit of his
church.
Early in June, 1846, the line from Baltimore to Philadelphia was in
operation, and that from Philadelphia to New York. Abroad the system was
working its way steadily into favor. In France an appropriation of
nearly half a million francs was made to introduce the Morse system. But
meantime violations of Morse's rights were beginning to crop up on every
side, both at home and abroad. In a letter to Daniel Lord, his lawyer,
Morse says:
"The plot thickens all around me; I think a dénouement not far off. I
remember your consoling me under these attacks with bidding me think
that I had invented something worth contending for. Alas! my dear sir,
what encouragement is there to an inventor if, after years of toil and
anxiety, he has only purchased for himself the pleasure of being a
target for every vile fellow to shoot at, and in proportion as his
invention is of public utility, so much the greater effort is to be made
to defame that the robbery may excite the less sympathy? I know,
however, that beyond all this there is a clear sky; but the clouds may
not break away till I am no longer personally interested, whether it be
foul or fair. I wish not to complain, but I have feelings, and cannot
play the Stoic if I would."
[Illustration: The Siphon Recorder for Receiving Cable Messages--Office
of the Commercial Cable Company, 1 Broad Street, New York.]
Perhaps the most painful chapter of Morse's life is the history of the
lawsuits in which he was involved in defence of his rights. His
reputation as well as his property were assailed. Exceedingly sensitive
to these attacks, the suits that followed the success of the telegraph
cost him inexpressible distress. It is some satisfaction to be able to
record that after years of bitter controversy the final decision was
favorable to the inventor. Honors began to pour in upon him from even
the uttermost parts of the earth. The Sultan of Turkey was the first
monarch to acknowledge Morse as a public benefactor. This was in 1848.
The kings of Prussia and Wurtemburg and the Emperor of Austria each
gave him a gold medal, that of the first named being set in a massive
gold snuff-box. In 1856 the Emperor of the French made him a chevalier
of the Legion of Honor. Orders from Denmark, Spain, Italy, Portugal soon
followed. In 1858 a special congress was called by the Emperor of the
French to devise a suitable testimonial of the nation to Professor
Morse. Representatives from ten sovereignties convened at Paris and by a
unanimous vote gave, in the aggregate, $80,000 as an honorary gratuity
to Professor Morse. The states participating in this testimonial were
France, Austria, Russia, Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Piedmont, the Holy
See, Tuscany, and Turkey.
Professor Morse was one of the first to suggest and the first to carry
out the use of a marine cable. During the summer of 1842 he had been
making elaborate preparations for an experiment destined to give
wonderful development to his invention. This was no less than a
submarine wire, to demonstrate the fact that the current of electricity
could be conducted as well under water as through the air. Of this he
had entertained no doubt. "If I can make it work ten miles, I can make
it go around the globe," was a favorite expression of his in the infancy
of his enterprise. But he wished to prove it. He insulated his wire as
well as he could with hempen strands well covered with pitch, tar, and
india-rubber. In the course of the autumn he was prepared to put the
question to the test of actual experiment. The wire was only the twelfth
of an inch in diameter. About two miles of this, wound on a reel, was
placed in a small row-boat, and with one man at the oars and Professor
Morse at the stern, the work of paying out the cable was begun. It was a
beautiful moonlight night, and those who had prolonged their evening
rambles on the Battery must have wondered, as they watched the
proceedings in the boat, what kind of fishing the two men could be
engaged in that required so long a line. In somewhat less than two
hours, on that eventful evening of October 18, 1842, the first cable was
laid. Professor Morse returned to his lodgings and waited with some
anxiety the time when he should be able to test the experiment fully and
fairly. The next morning the New York _Herald_ contained the following
editorial announcement:
"MORSE'S ELECTRO-MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH.
"This important invention is to be exhibited in operation at Castle
Garden between the hours of twelve and one o'clock to-day. One
telegraph will be erected on Governor's Island and one at the
Castle, and messages will be interchanged and orders transmitted
during the day. Many have been incredulous as to the powers of this
wonderful triumph of science and art. All such may now have an
opportunity of fairly testing it. It is destined to work a complete
revolution in the mode of transmitting intelligence throughout the
civilized world."
At daybreak the professor was on the Battery, and had just demonstrated
his success by the transmission of three or four characters between the
termini of the line, when the communication was suddenly interrupted,
and it was found impossible to send any messages through the conductor.
The cause of this was evident when he observed no less than seven
vessels lying along the line of the submerged cable, one of which, in
getting under way, had raised it on her anchor. The sailors, unable to
divine its meaning, hauled in about two hundred feet of it on deck, and
finding no end, cut off that portion and carried it away with them.
Thus ended the first attempt at submarine telegraphing. The crowd that
had assembled on the Battery dispersed with jeers, most of them
believing they had been made the victims of a hoax.
In a letter to John C. Spencer, then Secretary of the Treasury, in
August, 1843, concerning electro-magnetism and its powers, he wrote:
"The practical inference from this law is that a telegraphic
communication on the electro-magnetic plan may with certainty be
established across the Atlantic Ocean. Startling as this may now seem, I
am confident the time will come when this project will be realized."
In 1871 a statue of Professor Morse was erected in Central Park, New
York, at the expense of the telegraph operators of the country. It was
unveiled on June 10th with imposing ceremonies. There were delegates
from every State in the Union, and from the British provinces. In the
evening a public reception was given to the venerable inventor at the
Academy of Music, at which William Orton, president of the Western Union
Telegraph Company, presided, assisted by scores of the leading public
men of the country as vice-presidents. The last scene was an impressive
one. It was announced that the telegraphic instrument before the
audience was then in connection with every other one of the ten thousand
instruments in America. Then Miss Cornell, a young telegraphic operator,
sent this message from the key: "Greeting and thanks to the telegraph
fraternity throughout the world. Glory to God in the highest, on earth
peace, good-will to men." The venerable inventor, the personification of
simplicity, dignity, and kindliness, was then conducted to the
instrument, and touching the key, sent out: "S.F.B. MORSE." A storm of
enthusiasm swept through the house as the audience rose, the ladies
waving their handkerchiefs and the men cheering.
Professor Morse last appeared in public on February 22, 1872, when he
unveiled the statue of Franklin, erected in Printing-house Square in New
York. He died, after a short illness, on April 2, 1872, and was buried
in Greenwood Cemetery. On the day of the funeral, April 5th, every
telegraph office in the country was draped in mourning.
Professor Morse was twice married. His first wife died in 1825. In 1848
he married Sarah Elizabeth Griswold, of Poughkeepsie, who still lives.
By the first marriage there were three children, one of whom, a son,
survives. By the second marriage there were four children, three of whom
are alive--a daughter and two sons. Miss Leila Morse, the daughter, was
married in 1885 to Herr Franz Rummel, the eminent pianist. The last
years of his life were eminently peaceful and happy. In the summer he
lived at a place called Locust Grove, on the banks of the Hudson, near
Poughkeepsie, and in the winter in a house at No. 5 West Twenty-second
Street, a few doors west of Fifth Avenue. In recent years a marble
tablet has been affixed to the front of the house, suitably inscribed.
[Illustration: No. 5 West Twenty-second Street, New York, where Morse
Lived for Many Years and Died.]