born in a comfortable home in Charlestown, Mass. His father was the
Reverend Jedediah Morse who was not only popular with his congregation
but was the personal friend of General Washington and other great men
of his time. His mother was the daughter of a Judge, and her
grandfather had been president of Princeton college, so the baby who
was born on that April day had a rich inheritance of good blood and
love of education.
He was christened with the names of his father, grandfather and
great-grandfather, but the name was too long for daily use, so he was
called "Finley" at home, and in college was given the name of
"Geography" Morse.
His birth must have interested a large number of friends, for many
letters of congratulation were sent to the proud parents and to others
who knew them well. Dr. Belknap of Boston wrote to a friend in New
York:
"Congratulate the Monmouth Judge (Mr. Breese) on the birth of a
grandson. Next Sunday he is to be loaded with names, not quite as
many as the Spanish Ambassador who signed the treaty of peace in
1783, but only _four_! He may have the sagacity of a Jewish Rabbi,
or the profundity of a Calvin, or the sublimity of a Homer for
aught I know. But time will bring forth all things."
An interesting forecast, that, of the future of Finley Morse! He grew
to be a perfectly normal small boy who kept his mother very busy
looking after him, but was no more lively and mischievous than other
boys of his age. Here is a quaint little note to him from his father's
friend, Mr. Wells, written when Finley was only two years old:
"My dear Little Boy,
As a small testimony of my respect and obligation to your excellent
Parents and of my love to you I send you with this six (6) English
Guineas. They are pretty playthings, and in the country I came from
many people are fond of them. Your Papa will let you look at them,
and then he will take care of them, and by the time you are grown
up to be a Man, they will, under Papa's wise management increase to
twice their present number. With wishing you may never be in want
of such playthings and yet never too fond of them, I remain your
affectionate friend
Wm. M. Wells.
July 2, 1793."
When he was four years old Finley was sent to a school for very little
children, kept by "Old Ma'am Rand". She was lame and could not walk
across the room, but she kept a rattan rod by her side long enough to
reach any naughty pupil in the room, and the children were much afraid
of having this happen.
One day the teacher discovered Finley at the back of the room, busy
"drawing" a picture of her with a sharp brass pin on the shiny wooden
lid of a chest.
"Bring it to me!" commanded the old lady, and the boy came slowly
forward, pin in hand. When he was near enough to reach, Old Ma'am Rand
gripped him firmly and pinned him to her dress with the big pin. He
struggled so hard that he got away and ran screaming to the end of the
room with a piece of the old lady's dress that had been torn in the
struggle, hanging on his sleeve.
But evidently he and his teacher were really good friends, for he
stayed in her class until he was seven years old. Then he went to a
preparatory school in Andover, Mass., and from there to Phillips
Academy, also in Andover, where he was prepared for Yale college.
The following is the only letter preserved that was written by him at
that early date, from the preparatory school.
"Dear Papa,--I hope you are well and I will thank you if you will
send me up some quils. Give my love to mama and _Nancy_ and my
little brothers; pleas to kis them for me and send me up some very
good paper to write to you.
I have as many blackberries as I want I go and pick them myself.
SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE
YOUR SON.
1799."
Finley was never much interested in his studies, but liked better to
read books on whatever subject caught his fancy. "Plutarch's Lives" was
one of his favorites, and it gave him the ambition to become famous,
although exactly how to achieve his purpose he did not then see. But he
kept on reading, and studying and when he was thirteen he wrote a
sketch of Demosthenes and sent it to his father, who was so pleased
with it that he laid it away among his treasures.
The letters written to him by his father were very different from those
written by fathers of today. Here is part of one:
"My dear Son--You do not write to me as often as you ought. In your
next you must assign some reason for this neglect. Possibly I have
not received all of your letters. Nothing will improve you in
epistolary writing as practice. Take great pains with your letters.
Avoid vulgar phrases. Study to have your ideas pertinent and
correct, and clothe them in easy and grammatical dress. Pay
attention to your spelling, pointing, the use of capitals, to your
handwriting. After a little practice these things will become
natural and you will thus acquire a habit of writing correctly and
well. General Washington was a remarkable instance of what I have
now recommended to you. His letters are a perfect model for
epistolary writers.... I will show you some of his letters when I
have the pleasure of seeing you next vacation and when I shall
expect to find you much improved.
Your natural disposition, my dear son, renders it proper for me
earnestly to recommend you to attend to one thing at a time. It is
impossible that you can do two things well at the same time, and I
would therefore never have you attempt it. Never undertake to do
what ought not to be done, and then whatever you undertake,
endeavor to do it in the best manner.... Steady and undissipated
attention to one object is a sure mark of genius, as hurry, bustle
and agitation are the never failing symptoms of a weak and
frivolous mind. I expect you to read this letter over several
times, that you may retain its contents in your memory."
Whether the ten year old boy appreciated this fine letter is open to
doubt, but he certainly acted on its advice, for so good was his record
for scholarship that when he was only fourteen years old he was ready
to leave the preparatory school and become a college student.
A year later, in the fall of 1805 he left home and took the trip to New
Haven, where he entered the freshman class at Yale. An amusing incident
of his early college days is given in this letter. He says:
"We had a new affair here a few days ago. The college cooks were
arraigned before a tribunal of the students. We found two of the
worst of them guilty of several charges, such as being insolent to
the students, not exerting themselves to cook clean for us, in
_concealing pies_ which belonged to the students, having suppers at
midnight and inviting all their neighbors and friends to sup with
them at the expense of the students, and this not once in a while
but every night.... The fault is not so much in the food as in the
cooking, for our bill-of-fare has been in the following way:
Chocolate, coffee and hashed meat every morning, at noon, various;
roast beef twice a week, pudding three times, and turkeys and geese
on an average once a fortnight; baked beans occasionally; Christmas
and other merry days, turkeys, pie and puddings as many as we wish
for.... I ought to have added that in future we are to have
beefsteaks and toast twice a week, before this the cooks were too
lazy to cook them. I will inform you of the result of the affair as
soon as it is completed."
Then as now, "eats" formed a vastly important part of boys' life, it
seems.
At that time Jeremiah Day was teacher of natural philosophy at Yale,
and Prof. Silliman, of chemistry, and to these men young Morse owed
much of his later achievement. One day in class Prof. Day told his
pupils to all join hands while a student touched the pole of an
electric battery. At once a shock was felt down the long line of boys.
Morse described it as being like "a slight blow across the shoulders".
This experiment showed the pupils the wonderful speed at which
electricity travels. Another day the laboratory was darkened and a
current of electricity passed through a row of metal blocks placed at a
short distance apart, while the boys in awed silence watched the white
light flash between the links of the chain and the blocks.
So interested did Finley become in experiments along that line, that
when at vacation time he found he could not afford to take the trip
home, he was not much disappointed, but spent his time making tests in
the laboratory. That his problems were much the same as those of young
men of today is shown by this letter to his father. He says:
"I find it impossible to live in college without spending money. At
one time a letter is to be paid for, then comes up a great tax from
the class or society, which keeps me constantly running after
money.... The amount of my expenses for the last term was fifteen
dollars expended in the following manner:
Postage $ 2.05
Oil .50
Taxes, fines, etc 3.00
Oysters .50
Washbowl .37-1/2
Skillet .33
Axe, $1.33; Catalogues, 12c 1.45
Powder and shots 1.12
Cakes, etc. etc. etc. 1.75
Wine, Thanks Day .20
Toll on bridge .15
Grinding axe .08
Museum .25
Poor man .14
Carriage for trunk 1.00
Pitcher .41
Sharpening skates .37-1/2
Circ. Library .25
Post Papers .57
Lent, never to be returned .25
----------
$14.75
Paid for cutting wood .25
----------
$15.00"
Surely it would do the college boy of today good to read that list of
expenses. It might be a revelation to him.
A postscript to the letter adds, "The students are very fond of raising
balloons at present. I will (with your leave) when I return home, make
one. They are pleasant sights."
At that time, he was as much interested in drawing as he was in
electrical experiments, and could get a remarkable likeness of anyone
who would pose for him. As there were no photographs in those days, his
portraits were in great demand, and needing money, to help with his
expenses he began to paint miniatures to order, his price being five
dollars for those painted on ivory, and one dollar for profiles, and he
says, "Everybody is ready to engage me at that price."
When his college course was at an end Finley wished to take up painting
for a profession, but of this his parents did not approve, so for a
short time he was apprenticed to a bookshop-keeper, but was so unhappy
that Dr. and Mrs. Morse finally decided to let him become an artist,
and when he was nineteen years old he went to Europe with the
well-known artist, Washington Allston, to study art. In London he met
Benjamin West, the famous painter, to whom Morse "a young pilgrim from
the United States, modest and gentle, with his foot not yet on the
first rung of the ladder of fame" made a great appeal, and West took
the youth under his personal supervision, and felt enormous pride in
his progress, for Finley's picture of the dying Hercules at the Royal
Academy exhibition was named as one of the twelve best among two
thousand exhibited, and his cast of Hercules took the gold medal at the
Adelphi Society of Fine Arts.
Back again in America after four years abroad, young Morse had years of
struggle ahead, but with undaunted courage continued to work, and at
last, despite all obstacles won success as an artist. But of that no
more in this brief sketch which has to do with the Inventor.
We have seen the child in school, the boy in college, the budding
artist in his training, have watched him painting and making electrical
experiments with equal enthusiasm, and now he is no longer a boy, but
Morse, the man, when on that April day in 1832 we find him on the deck
of the packet-ship _Sully_. There, alone with the mighty influences of
Nature and his new idea, he is working out the first crude principles
of the Telegraph system which in after years was to be such a
revolutionizing factor in civilization and commerce.
Came years of struggle against what seemed to be overwhelming
obstacles, but Morse was equal to the emergencies of the case and we
have one more glimpse of him as the man who succeeded.
After twelve years of hard work to achieve his ends, a bill was passed
by the Senate appropriating thirty thousand dollars for testing the
Morse Telegraph. A young woman, Miss Ellsworth, had the good fortune to
carry the news to Mr. Morse, who was so overjoyed that he could
scarcely find his voice to thank her. When at last he spoke, it was to
promise that she should choose the first message to be sent across the
wires of his Telegraph.
A glimpse of his achievement--at its crowning moment of success.
The Assembly room of the United States Supreme Court with one of the
Morse Telegraph instruments installed in it. A group of distinguished
officers and private individuals, waiting with intense interest to see
the invention tested.
With perfect calmness the Inventor took his seat at the instrument,
laid his hands on the key-board now familiar to us all, and in the
Morse code sent the message chosen by Miss Ellsworth. Slowly--steadily,
successfully he wrote the chosen words,--
"WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT"
The message was instantaneously received in Baltimore by a Mr. Vail who
did not know beforehand what message was to be sent. He returned it
immediately to Washington, so that within a single moment those
inspired words were flashed back and forth through a circuit of eighty
miles.--The Telegraph system had begun to work!
A great American by inheritance, and by achievement, we do Samuel
Finley Breese Morse homage, for his ideals are those for which our
forefathers gave their lives. When that first message flashed over the
wires to Baltimore and back, the Inventor said humbly and reverently,
"The message baptizes the Telegraph with the name of its author,--for
that author is God."
DAVID FARRAGUT:
The Boy Midshipman
It was a day in late October, in the year 1812. Down the Delaware
River, came slowly sailing the frigate _Essex_, which was one of a
fleet being sent to cruise along the Atlantic coast for the protection
of American vessels from their English enemies, for 1812 was the year
when the war between England and America was declared, and for this
reason.
England had for a long time been at war with France. Any vessel going
to or from a French port was liable to be attacked by an English
man-of-war, and the English government even claimed the right to search
American vessels to see whether any English sailors were on board. And
worse than that, many American sailors were accused, and falsely, of
being English deserters and were taken from their own vessels and
forced to serve on English ships. All attempts of America to adjust
this matter peacefully were refused, and in 1812 America was obliged to
declare war against Great Britain, and in consequence a squadron was
fitted out to cruise along the Atlantic coast, to protect American
vessels from the English.
The _Essex_ was in command of Captain Porter, and as she was not ready
to start when the rest of the fleet did, she sailed alone down the
river through the quiet bay, and out into the ocean, and as she sailed,
she bore little resemblance to our war vessels of to-day, so clumsily
fashioned was she, being made of wood, with only one covered deck, and
the open forecastle and quarter-deck above it, and had but two tiers of
guns--the largest frigates carried sixty guns, besides a large pivot
gun at the bow, and were noted for their speed, though in comparison to
modern warships they were as a tortoise is to a hare.
Down the river sailed the _Essex_ to join the sister-vessels of her
fleet, with a pennant flying from her masthead, on which were the
words, "_Free trade, and sailors' rights_," for both of which, Captain
Porter was ready to fight.
On the deck of the _Essex_ as she swung slowly out to sea, stood
Captain Porter, and by his side stood the proudest boy in all America
that day, David Farragut, a little midshipman in a shining uniform
which boasted more brass buttons than the years of its wearer's
life--for David was only ten years old, and this is how he came to be
in such an important position on that October day.
Born on a farm near Knoxville, Tenn., on the fifth of July, in 1801,
David Glascow Farragut had a rich inheritance of courage and energy,
both from his mother and father--one being a Spaniard who had come to
America during the Revolutionary war, through his desire to help the
Colonists in their struggle for liberty, the other a brave, energetic
young Scotch woman.
The little farm was miles away from any other dwelling place, and
around it there was only a wilderness of forest trees, so that little
David and his brother were not allowed to go out of sight of the house,
because of the wild animals prowling through the woods and the Indians
who often lurked near. One day while the father was away hunting, the
Indians came and tried to force their way into the house, but brave
Elizabeth Farragut was too quick for them, with fierce courage she
guarded the entrance to the house--axe in hand--first sending the boys
up to a loft under the roof, where they crouched in silence for hours,
while the courageous mother kept the Indians at bay, and finally they
tired of their fruitless attempt and went away.
When David was seven years old his father was appointed sailing master
in the navy, and in consequence the family moved to the plantation on
the bank of Lake Pontchartrain near New Orleans, where the father's
headquarters were to be. As he was devoted to his children, he
generally kept them with him when he was off duty, and many times took
them out in his little sail boat on the lake in the fiercest kind of
storms, storms so severe that sometimes they could not even get home,
but would spend the night on an island, warmly wrapped in a heavy sail,
or tucked up under a protecting coverlet of sand. When he was blamed
for this, he always answered:
"Now is the time to conquer their fears," and continued to take his
boys on such excursions as before.
One day while George Farragut was out on the lake fishing, he saw an
old man in a boat alone and evidently sick.
Pulling alongside of him, Farragut found him unconscious, and towing
his boat to shore, carried him to the house, where Elizabeth Farragut
nursed him with as tender care as if he had been her father. His
disease was yellow fever, and in five days he died, and brave Elizabeth
Farragut survived him by only a few days, having caught the disease
while nursing him.
A sad day that was for the poor widower who was left with five
motherless children to care for, and it is small wonder that he
scarcely knew where to turn. While he was still dazed by his burden of
grief, a stranger came to the desolate little home on the lake, and
asked to see Mr. Farragut. He was Capt. Porter, the son of the old man
who had been cared for in his last sickness by the Farraguts, and his
son had come to express his gratitude for their kindness, and to offer
to adopt one of the boys, as a token of appreciation, if Mr. Farragut
was willing to give one up.
Although it meant final parting with his boy, and that was not easy,
George Farragut felt it was a wise thing to do, and as his eldest son,
William, was already in the navy, David was the next to accept the
offered advantage. Captain Porter was at that time in command of the
naval station at New Orleans, and his showy uniform made a great
impression on little David, who though sad at leaving his father and
brothers, was eager to go with this handsome new guardian, and as soon
as the farewells were said, and his slender wardrobe was packed,
Captain Porter took him away with him to his home in New Orleans, and
from there to Washington where he was placed in a good school.
Farragut was a bright, intelligent boy, with an honest, pleasant face,
and though he was short, he stood very erect and always held his head
very high.
"I cannot afford to lose any of my inches," he always said.
One day he was introduced to the Secretary of the Navy, who after
asking him many questions, was so delighted with the boy's quick
answers that he patted him on the head, saying:
"My boy, when you are ten years old, I shall make you a midshipman in
the navy."
That promise seemed too good to be true to young Farragut, who was then
nine and a half years old, but the Secretary of the Navy did not forget
it but kept his word, and the appointment came promptly, putting the
boy in a seventh heaven of anticipation. Then the arrangement was made
that he was to go with Capt. Porter, and on that October day of 1812
when the _Essex_ sailed out of the Delaware river, the young midshipman
stood in all his proud splendour of uniform beside the Captain who was
already his ideal of a naval hero.
For several months the _Essex_ cruised about in the Atlantic, during
which time Captain Porter was able to capture some English vessels,
among them the _Alert_, and the _Essex_ was crowded with prisoners
taken from the prize ships.
One night when young Farragut lay apparently asleep, but in reality
listening and watching, the coxswain of the _Alert_ came to his hammock
with a pistol in hand. Farragut scarcely breathed until he had passed
by, then noiselessly the young midshipman crept to the cabin where
Captain Porter was, aroused him and told him what he had seen. The
Captain sprang from his cot, crying "Fire! Fire!" The sailors rushed on
deck at the cry, and the rebels were in irons almost before they knew
what had happened, while to young Farragut belonged the credit of
having averted a mutiny.
Months passed, and still Captain Porter had not been able to find the
American squadron, so he decided to make a trip around Cape Horn, and
cruise about on the Pacific, which decision pleased young Farragut, as
he was eager for an experience of real sea life. And he certainly had
it. The weather was bitterly cold, and for twenty-one days the ship was
lashed by terrific gales, by the end of which time the provisions were
almost gone, and each man had only a small daily allowance of bread and
water, which was not a light experience, with appetites whetted by salt
air and hard work. After rounding the cape, Captain Porter sailed north
along the west coast of South America and stopped at an island near the
coast of Chili, and here all the sailors went ashore with their guns,
and killed some wild hogs and horses, and even the horse-flesh they ate
with keen relish, after being so long without fresh meat. Then for
months they cruised about in the Pacific, and as he had done in the
Atlantic cruise, so in the Pacific, Captain Porter captured several
English vessels and also warned some American whaling ships of danger.
These had been at sea for so long that they had not even heard of the
war. Every now and again the _Essex_ stopped at an island where the
sailors could kill seals, or when they anchored in a bay, they fished
for cod, and at one island where they stayed for quite a while, they
found prickly pears to eat, and killed pigeons which the cook on the
_Essex_ made into pies, and turtles which they caught were made into
soup, and the salt air and the free vigorous life gave them all
ravenous appetites, and young Farragut felt the keenest joy of living
which he had ever experienced.
On that island where they stayed so long they found a curious
post-office--a link connecting whoever should discover it with the
outer world of passing men and vessels. It was just a box nailed to a
tree, where messages or letters could be left to be picked up by other
vessels which happened to be going in the right direction to carry
them.
A far cry indeed from that island post-box to the wireless stations of
to-day, flashing news from sea to land--from land to sea!
At last in May, 1813, the _Essex_ sailed away from the island, and soon
more English vessels were sighted and captured. One of these prizes
Captain Porter wished to have taken to Valparaiso, and as through all
the long cruise he had kept a watchful eye on young Farragut, he now
determined to put the boy's ability to a hard test.
[Illustration: _David Farragut_]
Farragut was then only twelve years old, just think of it,--twelve
years old, but the Captain put him in charge of the captured vessel,
while its grey-haired old captain was required to navigate it to
Valparaiso under Farragut's command.