Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals Volume II Part 15

"'Indeed, for what?'

"'On the pa.s.sage of your bill.'

"'Oh! no, my young friend, you are mistaken; I was in the Senate chamber till after the lamps were lighted, and my senatorial friends a.s.sured me there was no chance for me.'

"'But,' she replied, 'it is you that are mistaken. Father was there at the adjournment at midnight, and saw the President put his name to your bill, and I asked father if I might come and tell you, and he gave me leave. Am I the first to tell you?'

"The news was so unexpected that for some moments I could not speak. At length I replied:--

"'Yes, Annie, you are the first to inform me, and now I am going to make you a promise; the first dispatch on the completed line from Was.h.i.+ngton to Baltimore shall be yours.'

"'Well,' said she, 'I shall hold you to your promise.'"

This was the second great moment in the history of the Morse Telegraph.

The first was when the inspiration came to him on board the Sully, more than a decade before, and now, after years of heart-breaking struggles with poverty and discouragements of all kinds, the faith in G.o.d and in himself, which had upheld him through all, was justified, and he saw the dawning of a brighter day.

On what slight threads do hang our destinies! The change of a few votes in the House, the delay of a few minutes in the Senate, would have doomed Morse to failure, for it is doubtful whether he would have had the heart, the means, or the encouragement to prosecute the enterprise further.

He lost no time in informing his a.s.sociates of the happy turn in their affairs, and, in the excitement of the moment, he not only dated his letter to Smith March 3, instead of March 4, but he seems not to have understood that the bill had already been signed by the President, and had become a law:--

"Well, my dear Sir, the matter is decided. _The Senate has just pa.s.sed my bill without division and without opposition_, and it will probably be signed by the President in a few hours. This, I think, is news enough for you at present, and, as I have other letters that I must write before the mail closes, I must say good-bye until I see you or hear from you. Write to me in New York, where I hope to be by the latter part of next week."

And to Vail he wrote on the same day:--

"You will be glad to learn, doubtless, that my bill has pa.s.sed the Senate without a division and without opposition, so that now the telegraphic enterprise begins to look bright. I shall want to see you in New York after my return, which will probably be the latter part of next week. I have other letters to write, so excuse the shortness of this, which, IF SHORT, IS SWEET, at least. My kind regards to your father, mother, brothers, sisters, and wife. The whole delegation of your State, without exception, deserve the highest grat.i.tude of us all."

The Representatives from the State of New Jersey in the House voted unanimously for the bill, those of every other State were divided between the yeas and the nays and those not voting.

Congratulations now poured in on him from all sides; and the one he, perhaps, prized the most was from his friend and master, Was.h.i.+ngton Allston, then living in Boston:--

"_March 24, 1843._ All your friends here join me in rejoicing at the pa.s.sing of the act of Congress appropriating thirty thousand dollars toward carrying out your Electro-Magnetic Telegraph. I congratulate you with all my heart. Shakespeare says: 'There is a tide in the affairs of men that, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.' You are now fairly launched on what I hope will prove to you another Pactolus. _I pede fausto!_

"This has been but a melancholy year to me. I have been ill with one complaint or another nearly the whole time; the last disorder the erysipelas, but this has now nearly disappeared. I hope this letter will meet you as well in health as I take it you are now in spirits."

Morse lost no time in replying:--

"I thank you, my dear sir, for your congratulations in regard to my telegraphic enterprise. I hope I shall not disappoint the expectations of my friends. I shall exert all my energies to show a complete and satisfactory result. When I last wrote you from Was.h.i.+ngton, I wrote under the apprehension that my bill would not be acted upon, and consequently I wrote in very low spirits.

"'What has become of painting?' I think I hear you ask. Ah, my dear sir, when I have diligently and perseveringly wooed the coquettish jade for twenty years, and she then jilts me, what can I do? But I do her injustice, she is not to blame, but her guardian for the time being. I shall not give her up yet in despair, but pursue her even with lightning, and so overtake her at last.

"I am now absorbed in my arrangements for fulfilling my designs with the Telegraph in accordance with the act of Congress. I know not that I shall be able to complete my experiment before Congress meets again, but I shall endeavor to show it to them at their next session."

CHAPTER x.x.x

MARCH 15, 1848--JUNE 13, 1844

Work on first telegraph line begun.--Gale, Fisher, and Vail appointed a.s.sistants.--F.O.J. Smith to secure contract for trenching.--Morse not satisfied with contract.--Death of Was.h.i.+ngton Allston.--Reports to Secretary of the Treasury.--Prophesies Atlantic cable.--Failure of underground wires.--Carelessness of Fisher.--F.O.J. Smith shows cloven hoof.--Ezra Cornell solves a difficult problem.--Cornell's plan for insulation endorsed by Professor Henry.--Many discouragements.--Work finally progresses favorably.--Frelinghuysen's nomination as Vice-President reported by telegraph.--Line to Baltimore completed.-- First message.--Triumph.--Reports of Democratic Convention.--First long-distance conversation.--Utility of telegraph established.--Offer to sell to Government.

Out of the darkness of despair into which he had been plunged, Morse had at last emerged into the sunlight of success. For a little while he basked in its rays with no cloud to obscure the horizon, but his respite was short, for new difficulties soon arose, and new trials and sorrows soon darkened his path.

Immediately after the telegraph bill had become a law he set to work with energy to carry out its provisions. He decided, after consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury, Hon. J.C. Spencer, to erect the experimental line between Was.h.i.+ngton and Baltimore, along the line of railway, and all the preliminaries and details were carefully planned.

With the sanction of the Secretary he appointed Professors Gale and Fisher as his a.s.sistants, and soon after added Mr. Alfred Vail to their number. He returned to New York, and from there wrote to Vail on March 15:--

"You will not fail, with your brother and, if possible, your father, to be in New York on Tuesday the 21st, to meet the proprietors of the Telegraph. I was on the point of coming out this afternoon with young Mr.

Serrell, the patentee of the lead-pipe machine, which I think promises to be the best for our purposes of all that have been invented, as to it can be applied '_a mode of filling lead-pipe with wire_,' for which Professor Fisher and myself have entered a caveat at the Patent Office."

Vail gladly agreed to serve as a.s.sistant in the construction of the line, and, on March 21 signed the following agreement:--

PROFESSOR MORSE,--As an a.s.sistant in the telegraphic experiment contemplated by the Act of Congress lately pa.s.sed, I can superintend and procure the making of the _Instruments complete_ according to your direction, namely: the registers, the correspondents with their magnets, the batteries, the reels, and the paper, and will attend to the procuring of the acids, the ink, and the preparation of the various stations. I will a.s.sist in filling the tubes with wire, and the resinous coating, and I will devote my whole time and attention to the business so as to secure a favorable result, and should you wish to devolve upon me any other business connected with the Telegraph, I will cheerfully undertake it.

Three dollars per diem, with travelling expenses, I shall deem a satisfactory salary.

Very respectfully, your ob't ser't, ALFRED VAIL.

Professor Fisher was detailed to superintend the manufacture of the wire, its insulation and its insertion in the lead tubes, and Professor Gale's scientific knowledge was to be placed at the disposal of the patentees wherever and whenever it should be necessary. F.O.J. Smith undertook to secure a favorable contract for the trenching, which was necessary to carry out the first idea of placing the wires underground, and Morse himself was, of course, to be general superintendent of the whole enterprise.

In advertising for lead pipe the following quaint answer was received from Morris, Tasker & Morris, of Philadelphia:--

"Thy advertis.e.m.e.nts for about one hundred and twenty miles of 1/2 in.

lead tube, for Electro Magnetic Telegraphic purposes, has induced us to forward thee some samples of Iron Tube for thy inspection. The quant.i.ty required and the terms of payment are the inducement to offer it to thee at the exceeding low price here stated, which thou wilt please keep _to thyself undivulged to other person_, etc., etc."

As iron tubing would not have answered Morse's purpose, this decorous solicitation was declined with thanks.

During the first few months everything worked smoothly, and the prospect of an early completion of the line was bright. Morse kept all his accounts in the most businesslike manner, and his monthly accounts to the Secretary of the Treasury were models of accuracy and a conscientious regard for the public interest.

One small cloud appeared above the horizon, so small that the unsuspecting inventor hardly noticed it, and yet it was destined to develop into a storm of portentous dimensions. On May 17, he wrote to F.O.J. Smith from New York:--

"Yours of the 27th April I have this morning received enclosing the contracts for trenching. I have examined the contract and I must say I am not exactly pleased with the terms. If I understood you right, before you left for Boston, you were confident a contract could be made far within the estimates given in to the Government, and I had hoped that something could be saved from that estimate as from the others, so as to present the experiment before the country in as cheap a form as possible.

"I have taken a pride in showing to Government how cheaply the Telegraph could be laid, since the main objection, and the one most likely to defeat our ulterior plans, is its great expense. I have in my other contracts been able to be far within my estimates to Government, and I had hoped to be able to present to the Secretary the contract for trenching likewise reduced. There are plenty of applicants here who will do it for much less, and one even said he thought for one half. I shall do nothing in regard to the matter until I see you."

A great personal sorrow came to him also, a short time after this, to dim the brilliance of success. On July 9, 1843, his dearly loved friend and master, Was.h.i.+ngton Allston, died in Boston after months of suffering.

Morse immediately dropped everything and hastened to Boston to pay the last tributes of respect to him whom he regarded as his best friend. He obtained as a memento one of the brushes, still wet with paint, which Allston was using on his last unfinished work, "The Feast of Belshazzar,"

when he was suddenly stricken. This brush he afterwards presented to the National Academy of Design, where it is, I believe, still preserved.

Sorrowfully he returned to his work in Was.h.i.+ngton, but with the comforting thought that his friend had lived to see his triumph, the justification for his deserting that art which had been the bond to first bring them together.

On July 24, in his report to the Secretary of the Treasury, he says:--

"I have also the gratification to report that the contract for the wire has been faithfully fulfilled on the part of Aaron Benedict, the contractor; that the first covering with cotton and two varnis.h.i.+ngs of the whole one hundred and sixty miles is also completed; that experiments made upon forty-three miles have resulted in the most satisfactory manner, and that the whole work is proceeding with every prospect of a successful issue."

It was at first thought necessary to insulate the whole length of the wire, and it was not until some time afterwards that it was discovered that naked wires could be successfully employed.

On August 10, in his report to the Secretary, he indulges in a prophecy which must have seemed in the highest degree visionary in those early days:--

"Some careful experiments on the decomposing power at various distances were made from which the law of propulsion has been deduced, verifying the results of Ohm and those which I made in the summer of 1842, and alluded to in my letter to the Honorable C.G. Ferris, published in the House Report, No. 17, of the last Congress.