The story has been told that the first words that ever came over a telegraph instrument were “What hath God Wrought!” and that they were spelled out by Samuel F. B. Morse, the inventor of the telegraphic code. This was supposed to have taken place in 1844 in Baltimore, and to have proclaimed the fact that Morse’s dream of telegraphy had become a reality. We are now told on good authority that this was not the first message to be sent by telegraph, nor was Morse the sender of the words. Instead, it was sent by one of the committee who were debating upon the proposal of Morse, the inventor, to string a telegraph line from Baltimore to Washington. Morse, who wanted to end the discussion and at the same time demonstrate his invention, strung a wire from the committee room to the top of the Capitol. One of the committee, who was opposed to President Tyler, wrote, “Tyler deserves to be hanged.” This was received by the man at the other end exactly as it was composed.
Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born at Charlestown, Massachusetts, on April 27, 1791. He was the son of the Rev. Jedediah Morse, and the great-grandson of Samuel Finley, the second president of the College of New Jersey at Princeton.
Morse entered Yale at the age of fourteen, which was not considered extremely young in those days. It was there that he first began the study of electricity. But his tastes led him more strongly toward art than toward science, and in 1811 the young graduate became the pupil of Washington Allston and went with him to England. Here he remained four years, distinguishing himself with his brush and making many friends.
During the next few years the young artist traveled about New England, painting portraits for the sum of $15 apiece. Later he increased his price to $60 a portrait, doing an average of four a week. By the money thus earned he was enabled to marry Miss Lucretia P. Walker on October 6, 1818.
In 1825 Morse was one of the founders of the National Academy of Design, and was its first president, from 1826 until 1845. He made a second visit to Europe in 1829, and traveled about the Continent for three years before returning to New York.
During all this time, however, while he was working at his art, Morse’s mind had also been occupied with another interest. That was electromagnetism, and the possibility of communication between far distant places by means of it.
It was on board the ship Sully, in which he was returning to America, that he 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 electricity.” And in a few days he had finished some rough plans of an apparatus to do this.
But it was a twelve years’ struggle against poverty and discouragement before he could get any apparatus that would work. Finally, however, he was successful in this, and after taking out a patent applied to Congress for money to experiment with the telegraph over a circuit of sufficient length to test its possibility and value. After long delay he was at last granted this in 1843. A line was built from Baltimore to Washington, and on May 24, 1844, Miss Ellsworth, daughter of the Commissioner of Patents, sent the first message from the chamber of the Supreme Court in Washington to Baltimore.
Three years later Morse was compelled to defend his invention in the courts, and successfully proved his claim to be called the inventor of the electromagnetic recording telegraph. He married for the second time in 1848.