Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals / In Two Volumes, Volume II

by Samuel Finley Breese Morse

On the same evening memorial services were held in Faneuil Hall, Boston, at which the mayor of the city presided, and addresses were made by Josiah Quincy, Professor E.N. Horsford, the Honorable Richard H. Dana, and others.

Other cities all over the country, and in foreign lands, held commemorative services, and every telegraph office in the country was draped in mourning, in sad remembrance of him whom all delighted to call "Father."

Mr. Prime, in his closing review of Morse's character, uses the following words:—

"It is not given to mortals to leave a perfect example for the admiration and imitation of posterity, but it is safe to say that the life and character of few men, whose history is left on record, afford less opportunity for criticism than is found in the conspicuous career of the Inventor of the Telegraph.

"Having followed him step by step from the birth to the grave, in public, social and private relations; in struggles with poverty, enemies and wrongs; in courts of law, the press and halls of science; having seen him tempted, assailed, defeated, and again in victory, honor and renown; having read thousands of his private letters, his essays and pamphlets, and volumes in which his claims are canvassed, his merits discussed and his character reviewed; having had access to his most private papers and confidential correspondence, in which all that is most secret and sacred in the life of man is hid—it is right to say that, in this mass of testimony by friends and foes, there is not a line that requires to be erased or changed to preserve the lustre of his name….

"It was the device and purpose of those who sought to rob him of his honors and his rights to depreciate his intellectual ability and his scientific attainments. But among all the men of science and of learning in the law, there was not one who was a match for him when he gave his mind to a subject which required his perfect mastery….

"He drew up the brief with his own hand for one of the distinguished counsel in a great lawsuit involving his patent rights, and his lawyer said it was the argument that carried conviction to every unprejudiced mind.

"Such was the versatility and variety of his mental endowments that he would have been great in any department of human pursuits. His wonderful rapidity of thought was associated with patient, plodding perseverance, a combination rare but mightily effective. He leaped to a possible conclusion, and then slowly developed the successive steps by which the end was gained and the result made secure. He covered thousands of pages with his pencil notes, annotated large and numerous volumes, filled huge folios with valuable excerpts from newspapers, illustrated processes of thought with diagrams, and was thus fortified and enriched with stores of knowledge and masses of facts, so digested, combined and arranged, that he had them at his easy command to defend the past or to help him onward to fresh conquests in the fields of truth. Yet such was his modesty and reticence in regard to himself that none outside of his household were aware of his resources, and his attainments were only known when displayed in self-defense. Then they never failed to be ample for the occasion, as every opponent had reason to remember.

"Yet he was gentle as he was great. Many thought him weak because he was simple, childlike and unworldly. Often he suffered wrong rather than resist, and this disposition to yield was frequently his loss. The firmness, tenacity and perseverance with which he fought his foes were the fruits of his integrity, principle and profound convictions of right and duty…. His nature was a rare combination of solid intellect and delicate sensibility. Thoughtful, sober and quiet, he readily entered into the enjoyments of domestic and social life, indulging in sallies of humor, and readily appreciating and greatly enjoying the wit of others. Dignified in his intercourse with men, courteous and affable with the gentler sex, he was a good husband, a judicious father, a generous and faithful friend.

"He had the misfortune to incur the hostility of men who would deprive him of his merit and the reward of his labors. But this is the common fate of great inventors. He lived until his rights were vindicated by every tribunal to which they could be referred, and acknowledged by all civilized nations, and he died leaving to his children a spotless and illustrious name, and to his country the honor of having given birth to the only Electro-Magnetic Recording Telegraph whose line is gone out through all the earth, and its words to the end of the world."