On the packet ship Sully, sailing from the French port of Havre for New York on October 1, 1832, were Dr. Charles T. Jackson, of Boston, who had been attending certain lectures on electricity in Paris, and an American artist named Samuel Finley Breese Morse. Dr. Jackson was intensely interested in electricity, and more especially in some experiments that Faraday had lately been making in regard to it. He had an electromagnet in his trunk, and one day, as a number of the passengers sat at dinner, he began to describe the laws of electro-magnetism as they were then known. He told how the force of a magnet could be tremendously increased by passing an electric current a number of times about a bar of soft iron. One of the diners asked how far electricity could be transmitted and how fast it traveled. Dr. Jackson answered that it seemed to travel instantaneously, none of the experimenters having detected any appreciable difference in time between the completing of the electric circuit and the appearance of the spark at any distance. Morse, who had been interested in the study of electricity at Yale College, said that if the electric current could be made visible in any part of the circuit he saw no reason why messages could not be sent instantaneously by electricity. To send a message would simply require the breaking of the circuit in such different ways as could be made to represent the letters of the alphabet. The conversation went on to other subjects, but the artist kept the conclusion he had just stated in mind. That night he walked the deck discussing the matter with Dr. Jackson, and for the rest of the voyage he was busy jotting down suggestions in his note-book and elaborating a plan for transforming breaks in an electric current into letters.

The facts at his disposal, and his first method of dealing with them, were comparatively simple. The electric current would travel to any distance along a wire. The current being broken, a spark would appear. The spark would stand for one letter. The lack of a spark might stand for another. The length of its absence would indicate another. With these three indications as a starting-point he could build up an alphabet. As there was no limit to the distance that electricity would travel there seemed no reason why these dots and dashes, or sparks and spaces, should not be sent all around the world.

Professor Jeremiah Day had taught Morse at Yale that the electric spark might be made to pierce a band of unrolling paper. Harrison Gray Dyar, of New York, in 1827, had shown that the spark would decompose a chemical solution and so leave a stain as a mark, and it was known that it would excite an electro-magnet, which would move a piece of soft iron, and that if a pencil were attached to this a mark would be made on paper. Therefore Morse knew that if he devised his alphabet he had only to choose the best method of indicating the dots and dashes by the current. The voyage from Havre to New York occupied six weeks, and during the greater part of this time he was busy working out a mechanical sender which would serve to break the electric current by a series of types set on a stick which should travel at an even rate of speed. The teeth of the type would complete the circuit or would break the current as they passed, and so send the letters. At the receiving end of the line the current as it was sent would excite the electro-magnet, which would be attached to a pencil, and so make a mark, and each mark would represent one of the symbols that were to stand for letters. He worked day and night over these first plans, and after a few days showed his notes to Mr. William C. Rives, a passenger, who had been the United States Minister to France. Mr. Rives made various criticisms, and Morse took these up in turn, and after long study overcame each one, so that by the end of the voyage he felt that he had worked out a practical method of making the electric current send and receive messages.

At a later date a contest arose as to the respective claims of Samuel Morse and Dr. Jackson to be considered the inventor of the recording telegraph, and the evidence of their fellow passengers on board the Sully was given in great detail. From all that was then said it would appear that Dr. Jackson knew quite as much, if not more, about the properties of electro-magnetism than Morse did, but that he was of a speculative turn of mind, whereas Morse was practical, and capable of reducing the other’s theories to a working basis. The note-books he submitted, and which were well remembered by many of his fellow voyagers, showed the various combinations of dots, lines, and spaces with which he was constructing an alphabet, and also the crude diagrams of the recording instrument which should mark the dots and lines on a rolling piece of paper. Captain Pell, in command of the Sully, testified later, that as the packet came into port Morse said to him, “Well, Captain, 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 times were ripe for his great invention, and although other men, abler scientists and students, had foreseen the possibilities of such a system, it was Morse who determined to put it into practice.

But Samuel Morse was a painter, and all his career thus far had lain along artistic lines. True, when he was an undergraduate at Yale he had been much interested in Professor Day’s lectures on electricity, and had written long letters home in regard to them. But when he was about to graduate, he wrote to his father, a well-known clergyman of Charlestown, Massachusetts, “I am now released from college, and am attending to painting. As to my choice of a profession, I still think I was made for a painter, and would be obliged to you to make such arrangements with Mr. Allston for my studying with him as you shall think expedient. I should desire to study with him during the winter; and, as he expects to return to England in the spring, I should admire to be able to go with him. But of this we will talk when we meet at home.”

Washington Allston was at that time the leading influence in the primitive art life of the country, and Morse was very fortunate to have won his friendship and interest. Allston took him to England, and there introduced him to Benjamin West, the dean of painters and a man who was always eager to aid young countrymen of his who planned to follow his career. Morse made a careful drawing of the Farnese Hercules and took it to West. The veteran examined it and handed it back, saying, “Now finish it.” Morse worked over it some time longer, and returned it to West. “Very well, indeed, sir,” said West. “Go on and finish it.” “Is it not finished?” asked Morse. “See,” said West, “you have not marked that muscle, nor the articulation of the finger-joints.” Again Morse worked over it, and again returned, only to meet with the same counsel to complete the picture. Then the older man relented. “Well, I have tried you long enough,” said he. “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 now decided to paint a large picture of “The Dying Hercules” for exhibition at the Royal Academy. In order to be sure of the anatomy he first modeled the figure in clay, and this cast was so well done that, acting on West’s advice, he entered it for a prize in sculpture then offered by the Society of Arts. This entry won, and the young American was presented with the gold medal of the society before a distinguished audience. The picture that he painted from this model was hung at the exhibition of the Royal Academy, and received high praise from the critics, so that Morse felt he had begun his career as artist most auspiciously.

His natural inclination was toward the painting of large canvases dealing with historical and mythical subjects, which were much in fashion at that period, and he now set to work on the subject, “The Judgment of Jupiter in the case of Apollo, Marpessa, and Idas.” This was to be submitted for the prize of fifty guineas and medal offered by the Royal Academy. It seems to have been a fine piece of work, and met with West’s hearty praise, but before it could be submitted the artist was obliged to return home at an urgent summons from his father.

Boston had already heard of Morse’s success in London when he reached home in October, 1815. His “Judgment of Jupiter” was exhibited, and became the talk of the town, but when he opened a studio and began to paint no one offered to buy any of his pictures. He needed money badly, and he saw none coming his way. After a year’s struggle he closed his studio, and traveled through the country sections of New England, looking for work as a portrait painter. This he found, and he wrote to his parents from Concord, New Hampshire, “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.”

In Concord he met Miss Lucretia P. Walker, whom he married a few years later. Meantime he went to visit his uncle in Charleston, South Carolina, and found his portraits so popular that he received one hundred and fifty orders in a few weeks. He was also commissioned to paint a portrait of James Monroe, then President, for the Charleston Common Council, and the picture was considered a striking masterpiece. He soon after married, and settled his household goods in New York, with $3,000 made by his portraits, as his capital.

He knew what he wanted to do, to paint great historical pictures. But the public did not appreciate his efforts in that line. He painted a large exhibition picture for the National House of Representatives, but it was not purchased by the government. On the other hand the Corporation of New York commissioned him to paint the portrait of Lafayette, who was then visiting America. At the same time he became enthusiastic over the founding of a new society of artists, and was chosen the first president of the National Academy of Design.

His small capital was dwindling. His efforts to paint historical pictures rather than portraits, and his share in paying off certain debts of his father’s, had made great inroads on the money he had saved. To add to his misfortunes his wife died in February, 1825. In 1829 he went abroad, visited the great galleries of Europe, and tried to find a more ready market for his historical studies. It was on his return from France in 1832 that the conversation of Dr. Jackson and the other passengers turned his thoughts in the direction of an electric telegraph.

Now came his gradual transformation from painter to inventor. His brothers gave him a room with them in New York, and this became his studio and laboratory at one and the same time. Easels and plastercasts were mixed with type-moulds and galvanic batteries, and Morse turned from a portrait to his working model of telegraph transmitter and back again a dozen times a day. He painted to make his living, but his interest was steadily turning to his invention.

He had many friends, and a wide reputation as a man of great intellectual ability, and in a few years he was appointed the first Professor of the Literature of the Arts of Design in the new University of the City of New York. This gave him a home in the university building on Washington Square, and there he moved his apparatus. At this time he was chiefly concerned with the question of how far a message could be sent by the electric current, for it was known that the current grew feebler in proportion to the resistance of the wire through which it travels. He had learned that the electro-magnet at the receiving end would at any great distance become so enfeebled that it would fail to make any record of the message. His solution of this difficulty was a relay system. He explained this to Professor Gale, a colleague at the university, who later testified as to Morse’s work. “Suppose,” said the inventor, “that in experimenting on twenty miles of wire we should find that the power of magnetism is so feeble that it will not move a lever with certainty a hair’s breadth: that would be insufficient, it may be, to write or print; yet it would be sufficient to close and break another or a second circuit twenty miles farther, and this second circuit could be made, in the same manner, to break and close a third circuit twenty miles farther, and so on around the globe.” Gale proved of great assistance. So far Morse had only used his recorder over a few yards of wire, his electro-magnet had been of the simplest make, and his battery was a single pair of plates. Gale suggested that his simple electro-magnet, with its few turns of thick wire, should be replaced by one with a coil of long thin wire. In this way a much feebler current would be able to excite the magnet, and the recorder would mark at a much greater distance. He also urged the use of a much more powerful battery. The two men now erected a working telegraph in the rooms of the university, and found that they could send and receive messages at will.

It is interesting to read Morse’s own words in regard to the beginning of his work at Washington Square. “There,” he said, “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 passed 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.

“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 straightened 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 he devoted all his time to his invention Morse had been anxious to paint a large historical picture for one of the panels in the rotunda of the Capitol at Washington. His offer had been rejected, and this had led a number of his friends to raise a fund and commission him to paint such a picture. He chose as his subject “The Signing of the First Compact on Board the Mayflower.” But he was now so much engrossed with his experiments that he gave up the plan and the fund was returned to the subscribers.

We have already heard in Morse’s statement of the arrival of Mr. Alfred Vail. He was to have much to do with the success of Morse’s invention. He had happened to call at the university building when the inventor was showing his models to several visiting scientists. “Professor Morse,” said Mr. Vail, “was exhibiting to these gentlemen an apparatus which he called his Electro-Magnetic Telegraph. There were wires suspended in the room running from one end of it to the other, and returning many times, making a length of several hundred feet. The two ends of the wire were connected with an electro-magnet fastened to a vertical wooden frame. In front of the magnet was its armature, and also a wooden lever or arm fitted at its extremity to hold a lead pencil.... I saw this instrument work, and became thoroughly acquainted with the principle of its operation, and, I may say, struck with the rude machine, containing, as I believed, the germ of what was destined to produce great changes in the conditions and relations of mankind. I well recollect the impression which was then made upon my mind.... Before leaving the room in which I beheld for the first time this magnificent invention, I asked Professor Morse if he intended to make an experiment on a more extended line of conductors. He replied that he did, but that he desired pecuniary assistance to carry out his plans. I promised him assistance provided he would admit me into a share of the invention, to which proposition he assented.... The question then arose in my mind, whether the electro-magnet could be made to work through the necessary lengths of line, and after much reflection I came to the conclusion that, provided the magnet would work even at a distance of eight or ten miles, there could be no risk in embarking in the enterprise. And upon this I decided in my own mind to sink or swim with it.”

Alfred Vail secured his father’s financial assistance, and in September, 1837, an agreement was executed by which Vail was to construct a model of Morse’s telegraph for exhibition to Congress, and to secure the necessary United States patents, in return for which he was to have a one-fourth interest in these patent rights. The patent was obtained on October 3, 1837, and Vail set to work to prepare the new models. Almost all the apparatus that was used had to be specially made for the purpose, or altered from its original use. The first working battery was placed in a cherry-wood box divided into cells and lined with beeswax, and the insulated wire was the same as that the milliners used in building up the high bonnets fashionable at that day. Vail made certain improvements as he worked on his model. He replaced the recording pencil with a fountain pen, and instead of the zigzag signals used the short and long lines that came to be called “dots” and “dashes.” He learned from the typesetters of a newspaper office what letters occurred most frequently in ordinary usage, and constructed the Morse or Vail code on the principle of using the simplest signals to represent those letters that would be most needed.

By the winter of 1837 many people had seen the telegraph instruments at the university building, but few of them considered them more than ingenious toys. Scientific men had talked of the possibilities of an electric telegraph for a number of years, but the public had seen none actually installed. Even Vail’s father began to doubt the wisdom of his son’s investment. To convince him the young man, on January 6, 1838, asked his father to come to the experimenting shop where Morse and he were working. He explained how the model operated, and said that he could send any message to Morse, who was stationed some distance away at the receiving end. The father took a piece of paper, and wrote on it, “A patient waiter is no loser.” “There,” said he, “if you can send this, and Mr. Morse can read it at the other end I shall be convinced.” The message was sent over the wire, and correctly read by Morse. Then Mr. Vail admitted that he was satisfied.

Morse now decided to bring his invention to the attention of Congress. He was permitted to set up his apparatus in the room of the House Committee on Commerce at the Capitol. There he gave an exhibition to the committee, but most of them doubted if his plans for sending long-distance messages were really feasible. On February 21, 1838, he worked his telegraph through ten miles of wire contained on a reel, with President Van Buren and his cabinet as an audience. Then he asked that Congress appropriate sufficient money to enable him to construct a telegraph line between Washington and Baltimore. The chairman of the Committee on Commerce, Francis O. J. Smith, of Maine, was very much interested by now, and drafted a bill appropriating $30,000 for this purpose. But the bill did not come to a vote, and the matter was allowed to drop.

Meantime rival claimants to the invention were appearing on all sides. Morse decided that he must try to secure European patents, and went abroad for that purpose. His claim was opposed in England, and in France it was finally decided that in the case of such an invention the government must be the owner. He was well received, and given the fullest credit for his achievements, but the patents were refused, and he had to return home with his small capital much depleted and business prospects at a low ebb. Moreover, the United States government now seemed to have lost interest in the subject, and his partners, the Vails, were having financial difficulties of their own.

While he waited he continued to experiment. He believed that the electric current could be sent under water as easily as through the air, and to try this he insulated a wire two miles long with hempen threads that were saturated with pitch-tar and wrapped with India-rubber. He unreeled this cable from a small rowboat between Castle Garden and Governor’s Island in[Pg 181]
[Pg 182] New York Harbor on the night of October 18, 1842. At daybreak Morse was at the station at the Battery, and began to send a message through his submarine cable. He had succeeded in sending three or four characters when the communication suddenly stopped, and although he waited and kept on with his trials no further letters could be transmitted. On investigation it appeared that no less than seven ships were lying along the line of Morse’s cable, and that one of these, in getting under way, had lifted the cable on her anchor. The sailors hauled two hundred feet of it on deck, and, seeing no end to it, cut it, and carried part of it away with them. But the test had proved Morse’s theory, and he became convinced that in time messages could be sent across the ocean as easily as over land.

When Congress met in December, 1842, Morse again appeared in Washington to obtain financial help. Congress was not very enthusiastic over his project, but the House Committee on Commerce finally recommended an appropriation of $30,000, and a bill to that effect was passed in the House of Representatives by the small majority of six votes. The Senate was overcrowded with bills, and Morse’s was continually postponed. In the early evening of the last day of the session there were one hundred and nineteen bills to come to vote before his, and it seemed impossible that it should be taken up. Morse, who had been sitting in the gallery all day, concluded that further waiting was useless, and went back to his hotel, planning to leave for New York early the next morning. He found that after paying his hotel bill he would have less than half a dollar in the world. But as he came down to breakfast the following morning he was met by Miss Ellsworth, the daughter of his friend, the Commissioner of Patents. She held out her hand, saying, “I have come to congratulate you.”

“Congratulate me! Upon what?” asked Morse.

“On the passage of your bill,” she answered.

“Impossible! It couldn’t come up last evening. You must be mistaken,” said the inventor.

“No,” said Miss 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.”

In return for this news Morse promised that Miss Ellsworth should send the first message when his telegraph line was opened. That same day he wrote to Alfred Vail that the bill “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.”

It had been decided to construct an underground line between Washington and Baltimore, the conductor being a five-wire cable laid in pipes, but after several miles had been laid from Baltimore the insulation broke down. A very large part of the government grant had been spent, and the situation looked very dubious. But after some discussion it was determined to carry the wire by poles, as this could be done much more rapidly and at smaller expense.

The National Whig Convention, to nominate candidates for President and Vice-President, met at Baltimore on May 1, 1844. The overhead wire had been started from Washington toward Baltimore, and by that day twenty-two miles of it were in working order. The day before the convention met Morse had arranged with Vail that certain signals should mean that certain candidates had been nominated. Henry Clay was named for President, and the news was carried by railroad to the point where Morse had stretched his wire. He signaled it to Washington, and the Capitol heard it long before the first messages arrived by train.

On May 24, 1844, the line was completed, and Miss Ellsworth was invited to send the first message from the room of the United States Supreme Court to Baltimore. She chose the Biblical words “What hath God wrought?” and this was sent over the telegraph. Vail received the message in Baltimore, and the first demonstration was a complete success. The younger man had added an improvement of his own; instead of the dots and dashes being indicated by the markings of a pen or pencil they were embossed on the paper with a metal stylus.

An incident in connection with the Democratic Convention, which was then in session in Baltimore for the purpose of nominating presidential candidates, added to the public interest in Morse’s telegraph. The Democrats had named James K. Polk for President and Silas Wright for Vice-President. The news was sent by wire to Washington, and Mr. Wright sent his message declining the honor over the telegraph. The chairman of the meeting, Hendrick B. Wright, received the message. In a letter to Benson J. Lossing he 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.” The committee returned with word that the telegraph message had been correct. Then, all but the convention committee being excluded from the telegraph room in Baltimore, message after message was sent over the wire by Vail to Morse and Silas Wright in Washington. The committee used many arguments to urge Wright’s acceptance; he answered them all, persisting in his refusal; and finally this decision was reported to the convention, which nominated Mr. Dallas in his place. The story of the part the new invention had played quickly spread abroad, and added to the intense public interest now focussed on it.

On April 1, 1845, the first telegraph line between Washington and Baltimore was opened for general use. Congress had appropriated $8,000 to maintain it for the first year, and placed it under the direction of the Postmaster-General. The official charge was one cent for every four characters transmitted. The receipts of the first four days were one cent, for the fifth day twelve and a half cents, for the seventh sixty cents, for the eighth one dollar and thirty-two cents, for the ninth one dollar and four cents. Morse offered to sell his invention to the government for $100,000, but the Postmaster-General declined the offer, stating in his report that the service “had not satisfied him that under any rate of postage that could be adopted its revenues could be made equal to its expenditures.”

With the public opening of the line between Washington and Baltimore the practical success of the new electric telegraph was assured. The Magnetic Telegraph Company was formed to carry a wire from New York to Philadelphia, and thence another line was run to Baltimore in 1846. The telegraph being an accomplished fact, pirates of the patent now appeared, and for a course of years Morse and his partners had to fight for their rights. Henry O’Reilly, who had been employed in building the first lines, contracted to construct another from Philadelphia to St. Louis, and when that was finished he formed a company known as the People’s Line, to run to New Orleans. He claimed to use instruments entirely different from those patented by Morse, and so to be free from the payment of royalties. Morse applied for an injunction, and on appeal the Federal Supreme Court decided in his favor. Other similar suits followed, and in each one the decision justified Morse’s contention. The conclusion was that even though other men had known of the possibilities by experiment, it was the fact that he had first put the matter into practical form directed toward a specific purpose, and hence was to be regarded in law as the inventor.

The telegraph grew with the country. The Western Union Company followed the stage-coach across the plains to California, and soon the frontier towns were linked to the large cities of the East. Other men took up the work in other lines, and in 1854 Cyrus W. Field formed the Atlantic Telegraph Company to lay a cable between America and Europe. As Morse had said when he first began seriously to study the subject on board the Sully, “If it will go ten miles without stopping I can make it go around the globe.”

The inventor found himself universally honored, and at last a very wealthy man. He married Miss Griswold of Poughkeepsie, and bought an estate of two hundred acres near that city. He was given degrees by American and European universities and societies, was made a member of the French Legion of Honor, received orders of knighthood from the rulers of Spain and Italy, Denmark, Turkey, and Portugal. In 1858 the Emperor of the French called a Congress in Paris to honor Morse, and the Congress awarded him a gift of 400,000 francs as a token of gratitude. In his eightieth year his statue in bronze was placed in Central Park, New York, and his countrymen did their utmost to show him their appreciation of his great achievement. He died in 1872, a short time after he had unveiled a statue of Benjamin Franklin in New York’s Printing-house Square.

Morse was the inventor, but his partner Alfred Vail had a great share in making the present telegraph. He discarded the original porte-rule and type of the transmitter for the key or lever, moved up and down by hand to complete or break the circuit. He perfected the dot and dash code, he invented the device for embossing the message, and replaced the inking pen by a metal disc, smeared with ink, that rolled the dots and dashes on the paper. When it was found that the telegraph operators would read the signals from the clicking of the marking lever instead of from the paper, he made an instrument which had no marking device, and in which the signals were sounded by the striking of the lever of the armature against the metal stops. This “sounder” soon drove out the old Morse recorder. The present instrument is in its mechanical form far more the work of Vail than of Morse.