MORSE’S FIRST TELEGRAPH INSTRUMENT
“MOTHER has just had a telegram from Grandmother that she’s on her way to visit us,” said the boy named Billy. “I’m strong for Grandmother and I’m going to train to meet her.”
“We’re all fond of Grandmother,” corrected Big Sister, “and we’re all going to the train to meet her. Who brought the telegram?”
“Nobody brought it,” said the boy named Billy. “When it got to town it just hopped off the telegraph wires and hopped on the telephone wire and came right out here. That’s got magic beaten a mile I’ll say. Whoever invented the telegraph system anyhow?”
“Oh, you with your ‘who inventeds’!” said Big Sister. “Why don’t you study up such things yourself?”
“I can read it afterwards,” said the boy named Billy, “but when Somebody tells it to me that makes a story of it. Please, who did invent the Telegraph?”
“Samuel F. B. Morse did,” said Somebody. “He was born at Charlestown, Massachusetts, April 27th, 1791, and lived until April 2nd, 1872. He was a portrait painter, and student of chemistry, and went to London to study painting under Benjamin West, where he made such progress that when he returned to America he was given a commission to paint a full length portrait of LaFayette.”
“LaFayette was some hero and worth painting,” said the boy named Billy, “but when do we come to the telegraph?”
“Right now,” smiled Somebody. “The idea of electricity had been talked of for a long time, and while Mr. Morse was away on one of his trips to England it was found by some experimenting that electricity could be conveyed by means of wire over distances.