"Judge of my astonishment," says the young man, "when he informed me that the 'shiftless individual,' whose foolish waste of time so much excited his commiseration, was none other than the president of the National Academy of Design,—the most exalted position, in my youthful artistic fancy, it was possible for mortal to attain."
Once more, in some way, Morse obtained the money to go to Washington, and make another effort. December 30, 1842, a bill was at last submitted, asking for the thirty-thousand-dollar appropriation. It received much ridicule from some of the members. One suggested that there should be an appropriation for mesmeric experiments; another suggested the same for Millerism. At last the vote was taken in the House, Morse sitting in the gallery watching the result with feverish anxiety. The vote stood 89 yeas to 83 nays. IT WAS CARRIED.
Would it pass the Senate? The amount of business to be transacted made its coming up improbable. The last day of the session came. Morse sat all the day and evening in the gallery, and finally went to his hotel, nearly prostrated from disappointment.
In the morning, as he came down to breakfast, Annie G. Ellsworth, the daughter of his old friend, the Commissioner of Patents, came toward him with a bright smile, saying: "I have come to congratulate you!"
"For what, my dear friend?"
"On the passage of your bill."
Morse could scarcely believe the good news, that the bill had passed, in the last moments of the session, without opposition. He was nearly overcome with joy, and told the young lady that she should send the first message over the first line.
He at once proceeded to construct the first line of his electric telegraph between Washington and Baltimore. Ezra Cornell, later one of the most successful constructors and largest proprietors of telegraphs, and the founder of Cornell University, was employed at a salary of one thousand dollars a year.
After many perplexities, the line was completed. On May 24, 1844, Morse invited his friends to assemble in the chamber of the United States Supreme Court, where he had his instrument in connection with Baltimore. Annie Ellsworth's mother had suggested to her these words from the Bible, for the first message: "What hath God wrought!" No words could have been more in accordance with Morse's feelings. Taking his seat at the instrument, he spelled out the words, and instantly they were received by Mr. Vail in Baltimore, who resent them the same moment to Washington. The strip of paper on which this message is printed is now in the Athenæum at Hartford, Conn.
What must have been Professor Morse's feelings at that moment. The day of triumph had come—the twelve weary years of poverty were over. Hereafter he was to be like one of the princes of the world.