The Modern Morse Telegraph.
This extraordinary struggle lasted twelve years, during which, with his mind absorbed in one idea and yet almost wholly dependent for bread upon his profession as an artist, it was impossible to pursue art with the enthusiasm and industry essential to success. His situation was forlorn in the extreme. The father of three little children, now motherless, his pecuniary means exhausted by his residence in Europe, and unable to pursue art without sacrificing his invention, he was at his wits' ends. He had visions of usefulness by the invention of a telegraph that should bring the continents of the earth into intercourse. He was poor and knew that wealth as well as fame was within his reach. He had long received assistance from his father and brothers when his profession did not supply the needed means of support for himself and family; but it seemed like robbery to take the money of others for experiments, the success of which he could not expect them to believe in until he could give practical evidence that the instrument would do the work proposed. It was the old story of genius contending with poverty. His brothers comforted, encouraged, and cheered him. In the house of his brother Richard he found a home and the tender care that he required. Sidney, the other brother, also helped him. On the corner of Nassau and Beekman Streets, now the site of the handsome Morse Building, his brothers erected a building where were the offices of the newspaper of which they were the editors and proprietors. In the fifth story of this building a room was assigned to him which was for several years his studio, bedroom, parlor, kitchen, and workshop. On one side of the room stood a little cot on which he slept in the brief hours which he allowed himself for repose. On the other side stood his lathe with which the inventor turned the brass apparatus necessary in the construction of his instruments. He had, with his own hands, first whittled the model; then he made the moulds for the castings. Here were brought to him, day by day, crackers and the simplest food, by which, with tea prepared by himself, he sustained life while he toiled incessantly to give being to the idea that possessed him.
Morse Making his own Instrument.
(From Prime's Life of Morse.)
Before leaving for Europe he had suffered a great disappointment as an artist. The government had offered to American artists, to be selected by a committee of Congress, commissions to paint pictures for the panels in the rotunda of the Capitol. Morse was anxious to be employed upon one or more of them. He was the president of the National Academy of Design, and there was an eminent fitness in calling him to this national work. Allston urged the appointment of Morse. John Quincy Adams, then a member of the House and on the committee to whom this subject was referred, submitted a resolution in the House that foreign artists be allowed to compete for these commissions, and in support alleged that there were no American artists competent to execute the paintings. This gave great and just offence to the artists and the public. A severe reply to Adams appeared in the New York Evening Post. It was written by James Fenimore Cooper, but it was attributed to Morse, whose pen was well known to be skillful, and in consequence his name was rejected by the committee. He never recovered fully from the effects of that blow. Forty years afterward he could not speak of it without emotion. He had consecrated years of his life to the preparation for just such work.
It was well for him and for his country and the world that the artist in Morse was disappointed. From painter he became inventor, and from that time until the world acknowledged the greatness and importance of his invention he turned not back. His appointment as professor in the City University entitled him to certain rooms in the University Building looking out upon Washington Square, and here the first working models of the telegraph were brought into existence.