In the morning Annie Ellsworth, the young daughter of the Commissioner of Patents, came to congratulate him. His bill had been passed just before midnight and the President had signed it, giving Mr. Morse all the money he needed to show how he could “send letters by lightning.”
The overjoyed inventor told Miss Ellsworth that when his line was all ready she should send the first message over it.
It was decided that the trial line should be put up between Washington and Baltimore. It was completed before the 24th of May, 1844. One end of it was in the Capitol at Washington and the other at Baltimore. Miss Ellsworth’s first message, flashed by S. F. B. Morse to his partner, Mr. Vail, in Baltimore, was this text of Scripture:
“What hath God wrought!”