Samuel Finley Breese Morse, an American artist, better known, perhaps,
as the inventor of the electric telegraph, is the eldest son of the
Rev. Jedediah Morse, the first American geographer, and was born in
Charlestown, Massachusetts, April 27, 1791. He was educated at Yale
College, where he graduated in 1810. He had from a very early age
determined to be a painter; and his father finding his passion for art
incorrigible, consented to indulge him in his wishes; and he
accordingly sailed for England, under the charge of Mr. Allston, and
arrived in London, in August, 1811. Here he formed an intimacy with C.
R. Leslie, and the first portraits of either of these artists painted
in London were likenesses of each other. Mr. Morse made rapid progress
in his profession. In 1813, he exhibited at the Royal Academy his
picture of “The Dying Hercules,” of colossal size, which received high
praise from the connoisseurs, and the plaster model which he made of
the same subject, to assist him in his picture, received the prize in
sculpture, the same year. Encouraged by this success, the artist
determined to contend for the premium in historical composition
offered by the academy the following year. The picture, the subject of
which was, “The Judgment of Jupiter, in the case of Apollo, Marpessa,
and Idas,” was completed in time, but Mr. Morse was obliged to leave
England before the premiums were to be adjudged, and was consequently
excluded from the privilege of competing for the prize. Mr. West
afterward assured him that he would undoubtedly have won it. On his
return to America, he settled in Boston, but he met with so little
encouragement, that he removed to New Hampshire, where he found
employment in painting portraits at $15 per head. He was induced by
his friends to remove to Charleston, South Carolina, and there his art
proved more profitable. About 1822, he took up his residence in New
York, where he found his works and talents more justly appreciated,
and his skill as an artist put into requisition. Under a commission
from the corporation, he painted a full length portrait of Lafayette,
then on a visit to the United States. It was shortly after this, that
Mr. Morse formed that association of artists which resulted in the
establishment of the National Academy of Design, of which he was
elected president; and it is worthy of note, that the first course of
lectures on the subject of art read in America, was delivered by him
before the New York Athenæum, and afterward repeated to the students
of the academy. In 1829, he paid a second visit to Europe, and
remained abroad three years. On his return from Europe, in the
packet-ship Sully, in 1832, a gentleman, in describing the experiments
that had just been made in Paris with the electro-magnet, the question
arose as to the time occupied by the electric fluid in passing through
the wire, stated to be about one hundred feet in length. On the reply
that it was instantaneous (recollecting the experiments of Franklin,)
he suggested that it might be carried to any distance, and that the
electric spark could be a means of conveying and recording
intelligence. This suggestion, which drew some casual observation of
assent from the party, took deep hold of Professor Morse, who
undertook to develop the idea which he had originated; and, before the
end of the voyage, he had drawn out and written the general plan of
the invention with which his name will be inseparably connected. His
main object was to effect a communication by means of the electro
magnet that would leave a permanent record by signs answering for the
alphabet, and which, though carried to any distance, would communicate
with any place that might be on the line. His first idea was to pass a
strip of paper, saturated with some chemical preparation that would be
decomposed when brought in connection with the wire, along which the
electric current was passing, and thus form an alphabet by marks,
varying in width and number, that could be made upon the paper at the
will of the operator, and by this means avoid separating the wire at
the different points of communication. On his return to New York, he
resumed his profession, still devoting all his spare time, under great
disadvantages, to the perfection of his invention. Finding his
original plan impracticable, he availed himself of the action of the
electro-magnet upon the lever as a mode of using pens and ink, as in
the ruling machine. Of these he had five, with the idea of securing
the required characters from one of the pens. These he abandoned for
pencils, and after a trial of various means for obtaining the end
desired, and finding by experiment he could obtain any requisite force
from the lever, he adopted the stylus or steel point for indenting the
paper, and it is this he has since used. After great difficulty and
much discouragement, Professor Morse in 1835 demonstrated the
practicability of his invention by completing and putting in operation
in the New York university, a model of his ‘Recording Electric
Telegraph’――the whole apparatus, with the exception of a wooden clock
which formed part of it, having been made by himself. In 1837, he
abandoned his profession, with great regret, hoping to make his
invention a means of resuming it, under easier and more agreeable
circumstances. In the same year, he filed his caveat at the
patent-office in Washington; and it is somewhat singular that, during
this year (1837), Wheatstone, in England, and Steinheil, in Bavaria,
both invented a magnetic telegraph, differing from the American and
from each other. Wheatstone’s is very inferior, not being a recording
telegraph, but requiring to be watched by one of the attendants――the
alphabet being made by the deflection of the needle. Steinheil’s, on
the contrary, is a recording telegraph, but from its complicated and
delicate machinery, has been found impracticable for extended lines.
At a convention held in 1851 by Austria, Prussia, Saxony, Wurtemberg,
and Bavaria, for the purpose of adopting a uniform system of
telegraphing for all Germany, by the advice of Steinheil, Professor
Morse’s was the one selected. From the sultan of Turkey he received
the first foreign acknowledgment of his invention in the bestowal of a
_nishan_, or order――the ‘order of glory:’ a diploma to that effect was
transmitted to him with the magnificent decoration of that order in
diamonds. The second acknowledgment was from the king of Prussia,
being a splendid gold snuffbox, containing in its lid the Prussian
gold medal of scientific merit. The latest acknowledgment is from the
king of Wurtemberg, who transmitted to him (after the adoption of the
Telegraph treaty by the convention above mentioned) the ‘Wurtemberg
Gold Medal of Arts and Sciences.’ In 1838, he went to England, for the
purpose of securing a patent there, but was refused through the
influence of Wheatstone and his friends, under the pretense that his
invention had already been published there. All that could be adduced
in proof of this was the publication in an English scientific
periodical of an extract copied from the New York ‘Journal of
Commerce,’ stating the results of his invention, without giving the
means by which they were produced. In the following spring, he
returned to this country, and in 1840 perfected his patent at
Washington, and set about getting his telegraph into practical
operation. In 1844, the first electric telegraph was completed in the
United States, between Baltimore and Washington; and the first
intelligence of a public character which passed over the wires was the
announcement of the nomination of James K. Polk, as the democratic
candidate for the presidency, by the Baltimore convention. Since then,
he has seen its wires extend all over the country, to the length of
more than fifteen thousand miles――an extent unknown elsewhere in the
civilized world. His success has led to the invasion of his patent
rights by others, whom he has finally succeeded in defeating, after an
expensive and protracted litigation. Professor Morse still clings to
the idea of resuming his early profession of painting, to which he is
strongly attached, and in the progress of which he has always taken a
deep interest. As an artist, he has always enjoyed a very high
reputation. His tastes inclined to historical painting, but
circumstances did not often permit him to indulge in it; he was mainly
engaged in the painting of portraits. In 1820, he painted a large
picture of the interior of the house of representatives, with
portraits of the members, which passed into the possession of an
English gentleman; and in 1832, while in Paris, he made a beautiful
picture of the Louvre gallery, copying in miniature the most valuable
paintings. He resides at Locust Grove, two miles south of
Poughkeepsie, on the banks of the Hudson river.
[Illustration: EUCLID CREEK.]
[Illustration: SCENE BY MOONLIGHT AT RED BANK, OHIO.]
[Illustration: PROF. MORSE.]
[Illustration: DAGUERRE.]