Morse, Samuel Finley Breese

Morse, Samuel Finley Breese (1791-1872), American inventor.

Samuel Morse started his career as an artist.

He studied at the Royal Academy in London and afterwards returned to the United States and became well known as a painter of portraits.

After his wife died Morse spent three years in Europe visiting museums and art galleries.

In 1832, he was returning to the United States in a ship named the Sully. One of the passengers gave a demonstration with a novelty. It was an electro-magnet. It set Morse thinking of the idea that led to the invention of the electric telegraph. But it was five years before he was able to put the idea into practice. Then he gave his first demonstration of electric telegraphy.

Afterwards, he invented a code of dots and dashes (the Morse Code) for use with the telegraph. The first telegraph line was opened on 24 May, 1844. In Baltimore, a message was tapped out in the new code and, thirty-seven miles (fifty-nine kilometers) away, in Washington, Morse read it and wrote it down. The words were: 'What hath God wrought.'

Morse lived to see telegraph lines set up in all parts of the world, including cables under the oceans. As an old man, he had a Morse key on his desk, and he used it to talk to friends thousands of miles away.

On his eightieth birthday, a statue of him was unveiled in Central Park, New York. He died one year later, it was said with his hand on the Morse key on his desk.

See Carleton Mabee The American Leonardo: A Life of Samuel F. B. Morse