Brief biographies from American history, for the fifth and sixth grades

by Edna Henry Lee Turpin

Morse was born in Massachusetts in 1791 and was given the names of his father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather. As befitting a child with the reputation of so many to sustain, his education began early. At four he was sent to what was called a “dame school” conducted by an old lady in the neighborhood. At seven he was sent away from home to attend a preparatory school; later he went to an academy; and thence at fifteen to Yale College.

At Yale he was much interested in some experiments with which a professor illustrated a lecture on electricity. It seemed to young Morse that this great force which travels with such wonderful speed ought to be put to some use. During vacation he made many experiments in the college laboratory.

But art, not science, was the subject which interested him most. From his childhood, he had been fond of drawing; he developed such skill and interest in the pictorial art that when he left college he told his father he wished to become an artist. Dr. Morse had hoped that his son would choose a profession but he resolved to let the youth follow his own inclinations and talents. Young Morse studied art several years, first in America and afterwards in England. His pictures brought him praise and medals abroad, and at home he became a successful portrait painter. He organized the National Academy of the Arts of Design and was made its president. Then he went abroad again and spent three years studying his chosen art.

In 1832 he started home; he was now forty-one years old and his life-work up to this time had been art. At this time an incident turned his attention to science, to the mysterious force which had interested him in his college days. On shipboard coming home, there arose a discussion about electricity and the almost instantaneous passage of a current along a copper wire.

Morse said: “If the presence of electricity can be made visible in any part of the circuit, I see no reason why intelligence may not be transmitted by it.”

The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that messages could be sent as he had suggested. When he got home, instead of painting portraits he spent his time trying to make an electric current carry a message along a wire and to invent an instrument to receive the message. He became very poor, and moved to an attic where he devoted himself to study and experiments. In 1835 he had devised an alphabet consisting of dots and dashes and had invented a machine, rough and crude but which would carry messages.

He did not have money to push his invention, but in 1837 Mr. Alfred Vail became interested in the machine and offered to furnish money and enter into partnership with the inventor. In 1840 a patent was secured. Morse tried to get an appropriation from Congress for testing his machine, but it was delayed so long that he despaired of success. One morning in March, 1843, a young friend, Miss Ellsworth, brought him news that an appropriation of thirty thousand dollars had been made by Congress for “constructing a line of electric-magnetic telegraph.” Morse promised that she might send the first message by telegraph between Baltimore and Washington. The line of wires put up on poles, was finished May 24, 1844. The first message sent was the text selected by Miss Ellsworth, “What hath God wrought.”

The Democratic National Convention was held in Baltimore about the time that the line was completed and the names of the nominees were telegraphed to Washington. People refused to believe the message was really sent till the news was confirmed by later tidings.

In 1842 Morse made experiments to prove that messages could be carried under water. As water is a good conductor of electricity, it was necessary to insulate the wire, which Morse did by wrapping it with hemp covered with pitch, tar, and rubber. This under-water wire worked well, and a plan was formed to put across the Atlantic a cable resting on the plateau between Newfoundland and Ireland.

This scheme was undertaken by Mr. Cyrus W. Field. The first cable made of insulated wire protected by twisted wire rope was broken in the attempt to lay it in 1857. The second cable was laid and it worked a few days. The first message sent by the cable which united Europe and America was “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men.” The third cable failed also, but the fourth, laid in 1866, gave good service. For thirteen years Cyrus Field had worked for the cable and at last out of failure had come success. Since the fourth cable was laid, there has been constant communication between Europe and America.