The year 1832 is only sixty years ago in time, yet since
then there has been a striking development of conveniences,
rapidity of travel, and arrangements for the diffusion of
intelligence. People then still travelled in great part by
aid of horses, the railroad having just begun its marvellous
career. News, which now fly over continents and under oceans
at lightning speed, then jogged on at stage-coach rates of
progress, creeping where they now fly. On the ocean, steam
was beginning to battle with wind and wave, but the ocean
racer was yet a far-off dream, and mariners still put their
trust in sails much more than in the new-born contrivances
which were preparing to revolutionize travel. But the wand
of the enchanter had been waved; steam had come, and with it
the new era of progress had dawned. And another great agent
in the development of civilization was about to come.
Electricity, which during all previous time had laughed at
bonds, was soon to become man's slave, and to be made his
purveyor of news. It is the story of this chaining of the
lightning, and forcing it to become the swift conveyer of
man's sayings and doings, that we have here to tell.
In the far remote period named--if we measure time by
deeds, not by years--a packet-ship, the Sully, was making
its deliberate way across the Atlantic from Havre to New
York. Its passenger list was not large,--the ocean had not
yet become a busy highway of the continents,--but among them
were some persons in whom we are interested. One of these
was a Boston doctor, Charles T. Jackson by name. A second
was a New York artist, named Samuel F.B. Morse. The
last-named gentleman had been a student at Yale, where he
became greatly interested in chemistry and some other
sciences. He had studied the art of painting under Benjamin
West in London, had practised it in New York, had long been
president of the National Academy of the Arts of Design; and
was now on his way home after a second period of residence
in Europe as a student of art.
An interesting conversation took place one day in the cabin
of the Sully. Dr. Jackson spoke of Ampère's experiments with
the electro-magnet; of how Franklin had sent electricity
through several miles of wire, finding no loss of time
between the touch at one end and the spark at the other; and
how, in a recent experiment at Paris, a great length of wire
had been carried in circles around the walls of a large
apartment, an electro-magnet connected with one end, and an
electric current manifested at the other, having passed
through the wire so quickly as to seem instantaneous. Mr.
Morse's taste for science had not died out during his years
of devotion to art. He listened with the most earnest
attention to the doctor's narrative, and while he did so a
large and promising idea came into being in his brain.
"Why," he exclaimed, with much ardor of manner, "if that is
so, and the presence of electricity can be made visible in
any desired part of the circuit, I see no reason why
intelligence should not be transmitted instantaneously by
electricity."
"How convenient it would be if we could send news in that
manner!" chimed in one of the passengers.
"Why can't we?" exclaimed Morse.
Why not, indeed? The idea probably died in the minds of most
of the persons present within five minutes. But Samuel Morse
was not one of the men who let ideas die. This one haunted
him day and night. He thought of it and dreamed of it. In
those days of deliberate travel time hung heavily on the
hands of transatlantic passengers, despite the partial
diversions of eating and sleeping. The ocean grew
monotonous, the vessel monotonous, the passengers
monotonous, everything monotonous except that idea, and that
grew and spread till its fibres filled every nook and cranny
of the inventive brain that had taken it in to bed and
board.
Morse had abundance of the native Yankee faculty of
invention. To do, had been plain enough from the start. How
to do, was the question to be solved. But before the Sully
steamed into New York harbor the solution had been reached.
In the mind of the inventor, and in graphic words and
drawings on paper, were laid down the leading features of
that telegraphic method which is used to-day in the great
majority of the telegraph lines of the world.
An alphabet of dots and marks, a revolving ribbon of paper
to receive this alphabet, a method of enclosing the wires in
tubes which were to be buried underground, were the leading
features of the device as first thought of. The last
conception was quickly followed by that of supporting the
wires in the air, but Morse clung to his original fancy for
burying them,--a fancy which, it may here be said, is coming
again into vogue in these latter days, so far as cities are
concerned.
It is not meant to be implied that the idea of sending news
by electricity was original with Morse. Others had had it
before him. More than half a century before, Dr. Franklin
and some friends had stretched a wire across the Schuylkill
River and killed a turkey on the other side by electricity.
As they ate this turkey, it is quite possible that they
imbibed with it the idea of making this marvellous agent do
other work than killing fowl for dinner, and from that time
on it is likely that many had speculated on the possibility
of sending intelligence by wire. Some experiments had been
made, and with a certain degree of success, but time still
waited for the hour and the man, and the hour and the man
met in that fertile October day in the cabin of the Sully.
"If it can go ten miles without stopping, I can make it go
round the world," said Morse to his fellow-passengers, his
imagination expanding in the ardor of his new idea.
"Well, captain," he said, with a laugh, on leaving the ship,
"should you hear of the telegraph one of these days as the
wonder of the world, remember that the discovery was made on
board the good ship Sully."
The inventor, indeed, was possessed with his new
conceptions, mad with an idea, as we may say, and glad to
set foot once more on shore, that he might put his plans in
practice.
This proved no easy task. He was none too well provided with
funds, and the need of making a living was the first
necessity that presented itself to him. He experimented as
much as he was able, but three years passed before his
efforts yielded a satisfactory result. Then, with a circuit
of seventeen hundred feet of wire, and a wooden clock,
adapted by himself to suit his purpose, he managed to send a
message from end to end of this wire. It was not very
legible. He could make some sense of it. His friends could
not. But all were much interested in the experiment. Many
persons witnessed these results, as shown in a large room of
the New York University, in 1837. They seemed wonderful;
much was said about them; but nobody seemed to believe that
the apparatus was more than a curious and unprofitable toy,
and capitalists buttoned their pockets when the question of
backing up this wild inventor's fancy with money was
broached.
But by this time Mr. Morse was a complete captive to his
idea. Body and soul he was its slave. The question of daily
fare became secondary; that of driving his idea over and
through all obstacles became primary. His business as an
artist was neglected. He fell into want, into almost abject
poverty. For twenty-four hours he went without food. But not
for a moment did he lose faith in his invention, or remit
his efforts to find a capitalist with sufficient confidence
in him to risk his money in it.
Failing with the private rich, he tried to obtain public
support, went to Washington in 1838, exhibited his apparatus
to interested congressmen, and petitioned for enough money
from the public purse to build a line from Baltimore to
Washington,--forty miles only. It is traditionally slow work
in getting a bill through Congress. Weary with waiting,
Morse went to Europe, to try his new seed in that old soil.
It failed to germinate abroad as it had at home. Men with
money acknowledged that the idea was a scientific success,
but could not believe that it might be made a business
success.
"What would people care for instantaneous news?" they said.
"Some might, it is true, but the great mass would be content
to wait for their news in the good old way. To lay miles of
wire in the earth is to bury a large treasure in money. We
cannot see our way clear to getting it back again out of the
pockets of the public. Your wires work, Mr. Morse, but, from
a business point of view, there's more cost than profit in
the idea."
It may be that these exact words were not spoken, but the
answer of Europe was near enough to this to send the
inventor home disappointed. He began again his weary waiting
on the slowly-revolving wheels of the congressional
machinery.
March 3, 1843, came. It was the last day of the session.
With the stroke of midnight on that day the existing
Congress would die, and a new one be born, with which the
weary work of the education of congressmen would have to be
gone over again. The inventor had been given half a loaf.
His bill had been passed, on February 23, in the House. All
day of March 3 he hung about the Senate chamber petitioning,
where possible, for the other half of his loaf, faintly
hoping that in the last will and testament of the expiring
Congress some small legacy might be left for him.
Evening came. The clock-hands circled rapidly round.
Pressure of bills and confusion of legislation grew greater
minute by minute. The floodgates of the deluge are lifted
upon Congress in its last hours, and business pours onward
in such an overwhelming fashion that small private
petitioners can scarcely hope that the doors of the ark of
safety will be opened to their petty claims. Morse hung
about the chamber until the midnight hour was almost ready
to strike. Every moment confusion seemed to grow "worse
confounded." The work of a month of easy-going legislation
was being compressed into an hour of haste and excitement.
The inventor at last left the Capitol, a saddened and
disappointed man, and made his way home, the last shreds of
hope seeming to drop from him as he went. He was almost
ready to give up the fight, and devote himself for the
future solely to brush and pencil.
He slept but poorly that night, and rose the next morning
still depressed and gloomy. He appeared at the
breakfast-table with a face from which the very color of
ambition seemed to have been washed out. As he entered the
room he was met by a young lady, Miss Annie G. Ellsworth,
daughter of the Commissioner of Patents. The smile on her
beaming face was in striking contrast to the gloom on his
downcast countenance.
"I have come to congratulate you, Mr. Morse," she said,
cheerily.
"For what, my dear friend?"
"For the passage of your bill."
"What!" he gazed at her amazement. Could she be attempting a
foolish and cruel jest? "The passage of my bill!" he
faltered.
"Yes. Do you not know of it?"
"No."
"Then you came home too early last night. And I am happy in
being the first to bring you the good news. Congress has
granted your claim."
It was true: he had been remembered in the will of the
expiring Congress. In the last hour of the Senate, amid the
roar of the deluge of public business, his small demand had
floated into sight, and thirty thousand dollars had been
voted him for the construction of an experimental telegraph
line.
"You have given me new life, Miss Ellsworth," he said. "As
a reward for your good tidings I promise you that when my
telegraph line is completed, you shall have the honor of
choosing the first message to be sent over it."
The inventor was highly elated, and not without reason.
Since the morning of the conversation on the ship Sully,
eleven and a half years had passed. They had been years of
such struggle against poverty and discouragement as only a
man who is the slave of an idea has the hardihood to endure.
The annals of invention contain many such instances; more,
perhaps, than can be found in any other channel of human
effort.
To complete our story we have to bring another inventor upon
the stage. This was Ezra Cornell, memorable to-day as the
founder of Cornell University, a man at that time unknown,
but filled with inventive ideas, and ready to undertake any
task that might offer itself, from digging a well to boring
a mountain tunnel. One day Mr. Cornell, who was at that time
occupying the humble position of traveling agent for a
patent plough, called at the office of an agricultural
newspaper in Portland, Maine. He found the editor on his
knees, a piece of chalk in his hand, and parts of a plough
by his side, making drawings on the floor, and trying to
explain something to a plough-maker beside him. The editor
looked up at his visitor, and an expression of relief
replaced the perplexity on his face.
"Cornell," he cried, "you're the very man I want to see. I
want a scraper made, and I can't make Robinson here see
into my idea. You can understand it, and make it for me,
too."
"What is your scraper to do?" asked Cornell.
Mr. Smith, the editor, rose from his knees and explained. A
line of telegraph was to be built from Baltimore to
Washington. Congress had granted the money. He had taken the
contract from Professor Morse to lay the tube in which the
wire was to be placed. He had made a bad bargain, he feared.
The job was going to cost more than he had calculated, on.
He was trying to invent something that would dig the ditch,
and fill in the dirt again after the pipe was laid. Cornell
listened to him, questioned him, found out the size of the
pipe and the depth of the ditch, then sat down and passed
some minutes in hard thinking. Finally he said,--
"You are on the wrong tack. You don't want either a ditch or
a scraper."
He took a pencil and in a few minutes outlined a machine,
which he said would cut a trench two feet deep, lay the pipe
at its bottom, and cover the earth in behind it. The motive
power need be only a team of oxen or mules. These creatures
had but to trudge slowly onward. The machine would do its
work faithfully behind them.
"Come, come, this is impossible!" cried editor Smith.
"I'll wager my head it can be done, and I can do it,"
replied inventor Cornell.
He laid a large premium on his confidence in his idea,
promising that if his machine would not work he would ask
no money for it. But if it succeeded, he was to be well
paid. Smith agreed to these terms, and Cornell went to work.
In ten days the machine was built and ready for trial. A
yoke of oxen was attached to it, three men managed it, and
in the first five minutes it had laid one hundred feet of
pipe and covered it with earth. It was a decided success.
Mr. Smith had contracted to lay the pipe for one hundred
dollars a mile. A short calculation proved to him that, with
the aid of Ezra Cornell's machine, ninety dollars of this
would be profit.
But the shrewd editor did not feel like risking Cornell's
machine in any hands but those of the inventor. He made him
a profitable offer if he would go to Baltimore and take
charge of the job himself. It would pay better than selling
patent ploughs. Cornell agreed to go.
Reaching Baltimore, he met Professor Morse. They had never
met before. Their future lives were to be closely
associated. In the conversation that ensued Morse explained
what he proposed to do. An electric wire might either be
laid underground or carried through the air. He had decided
on the underground system, the wire being coated by an
insulating compound and drawn through a pipe.
Cornell questioned him closely, got a clear idea of the
scheme, saw the pipe that was to be used, and expressed
doubts of its working.
"It will work, for it has worked," said Morse. "While I have
been fighting Congress, inventors in Europe have been
experimenting with the telegraphic idea. Short lines have
been laid in England and elsewhere, in which the wire is
carried in buried pipes. They had been successful. What can
be done in Europe can be done in America."
What Morse said was a fact. While he had been pushing his
telegraph conception in America it had been tried
successfully in Europe. But the system adopted there, of
vibrating needle signals, was so greatly inferior to the
Morse system, that it was destined in the future to be
almost or quite set aside by the latter. To-day the Morse
system and alphabet are used in much the greater number of
the telegraph offices of the world.
But to return to our story. Cornell went to work, and the
pipe, with its interior wire, was laid with much rapidity.
Not many days had elapsed before ten miles were underground,
the pipe being neatly covered as laid. It reached from
Baltimore nearly to the Relay House. Here it stopped, for
something had gone wrong. Morse tested his wire. It would
not work. No trace of an electric current could be got
through it. The insulation was evidently imperfect. What was
to be done? He would be charged with wasting the public
money on an impracticable experiment. Yet if he stopped he
might expect a roar of newspaper disapprobation of his whole
scheme. He was in a serious dilemma. How should he escape?
He sought Cornell, and told him of the failure of his
experiments. The work must be stopped. He must try other
kinds of pipe and new methods of insulation. But if the
public should suspect failure there would be vials of wrath
poured on their devoted heads.
"The public shall not suspect failure. Leave it to me," said
Cornell.
He turned to his men. The machine was slowly moving forward,
drawn by a team of eight mules, depositing pipe as it went.
A section had just been laid. Night was at hand.
"Hurry up, boys," cried Cornell, cheerily. "We must lay
another length before we quit."
He grasped the handles of his plough-like machine; the
drivers stirred up the mules to a lively pace; the
contrivance went merrily forward. But the cunning pilot knew
what he was about. He steered the buried point of the
machine against a rock that just protruded from the earth.
In an instant there was a shock, a sound of rending wood and
iron, a noise of shouting and trampling; and then the line
of mules came to a halt. But behind them were only the ruins
of a machine. That moment's work had converted the
pipe-laying contrivance into kindling-wood and scrap-iron.
The public condoled with the inventor. It was so unlucky
that his promising progress should be stopped by such an
accident! As for Morse and his cunning associate, they
smiled quietly to themselves as they went on with their
experiments. Another kind of pipe was tried. Still the
current would not go through. A year passed by. Experiment
after experiment had been made. All had proved failures.
Twenty-three thousand dollars of the money had been spent.
Only seven thousand remained. The inventor was on the verge
of despair.
"I am afraid it will never work," said Cornell. "It looks
bad for the pipe plan."
"Then let us try the other," said Morse. "If the current
won't go underground, it may be coaxed to go above-ground."
The plan suggested was to string the wire upon poles,
insulating it from the wood by some non-conductor. A
suitable insulator was needed. Cornell devised one; another
inventor produced another. Morse approved of the latter,
started for New York with it to make arrangements for its
manufacture, and on his way met Professor Henry, who knew
more about electricity than any other man in the country.
Morse showed him the models of the two insulators, and
indicated the one he had chosen. Mr. Henry examined them
closely.
"You are mistaken," he said. "That one won't work. This is
the insulator you need." He pointed to Cornell's device.
In a few words he gave his reasons. Morse saw that he was
right. The Cornell insulator was chosen And now the work
went forward with great rapidity. The planting of poles, and
stringing of wires over a glass insulator at their tops, was
an easy and rapid process. And more encouraging still, the
thing worked to a charm. There was no trouble now in
obtaining signals from the wire.
The first public proof of the system was made on May 11,
1844. On that day the Whig National Convention, then in
session at Baltimore, had nominated Henry Clay for the
Presidency. The telegraph was being built from the
Washington end, and was yet miles distant from Baltimore.
The first railroad train from Baltimore carried passengers
who were eager to tell the tidings to their Washington
friends. But it carried also an agent of Professor Morse,
who brought the news to the inventor at the unfinished end
of the telegraph. From that point he sent it over the wire
to Washington. It was successfully received at the
Washington end, and never were human beings more surprised
than were the train passengers on alighting at the capital
city to find that they brought stale news, and that Clay's
nomination was already known throughout Washington. It was
the first public proof in America of the powers of the
telegraph, and certainly a vital and convincing one.
Before the 24th of May the telegraph line to Baltimore was
completed, the tests successfully made, and all was ready
for the public exhibition of its marvellous powers, which
had been fixed for that day. Miss Ellsworth, in compliance
with the inventor's promise, made her more than a year
before, was given the privilege of choosing the first
message to go over the magic wires. She selected the
appropriate message from Scriptures: "What hath God
wrought?" With these significant words began the reign of
that marvellous invention which has wrought so wonderfully
in binding the ends of the earth together and making one
family of mankind.
There were difficulties still in the way of the inventor,
severe ones. His after-life lay in no bed of roses. His
patents were violated, his honor was questioned, even his
integrity was assailed; rival companies stole his business,
and lawsuits made his life a burden. He won at last, but
failed to have the success of his associate, Mr. Cornell,
who grew in time very wealthy from his telegraphic
enterprises.
As regards the Morse system of telegraphy, it may be said in
conclusion that over one hundred devices have been invented
to supersede it, but that it holds its own triumphant over
them all. The inventor wrought with his brain to good
purpose in those days and nights of mental discipline above
the Atlantic waves and on board the good ship Sully.