Samuel F.B. Morse Works to Build the First Telegraph Line

He feels burdened with “responsibility“, and relates that “disasters by the late flood have created incidentally an exigency which demands from me more than usual attention.”

Samuel F.B. Morse established his reputation as a portrait painter, and his travels took him to Europe. The idea of using electricity to communicate over distance is said to have occurred to him during a conversation aboard ship when he was returning from Europe in 1832. Michael Faraday’s recently invented electromagnet was much discussed by the ship’s passengers, and when Morse came to understand how it worked, he speculated that it might be possible to send a coded message over a wire. In 1837 he applied for a patent, and by December of that year Morse had enough confidence in his new system to apply for a federal government appropriation to build it. During the next year he conducted demonstrations of his telegraph both in New York and Washington, where he sent telegraph messages between the Senate and House wings of the Capitol. However, when the economic disaster known as the Panic of 1837 took hold of the nation and caused a long depression, Morse was forced to wait for better times.

By 1843, the country was recovering economically, and Morse asked Congress for the $30,000 that would allow him to build a telegraph line from Washington to Baltimore, forty miles away. The House of Representatives passed the bill containing the Morse appropriation, and the Senate approved it in the final hours of that Congress’s last session. With President Tyler’s signature, Morse received the cash he needed and began to carry out plans for a telegraph line. Morse also was aided by some private backers, including Congressman F.O.J. Smith.

Morse now considered whether to run the telegraph cable overhead on poles or underground. The underground method required trenching, insulated telegraph wire, and piping through which to run the wires. By the time the project was authorized, he elected the underground method for reasons of cost. But construction encountered numerous obstacles and delays. It was Morse’s idea to protect his fragile copper wire by running it through protective lead pipe, half an inch in diameter. After bids were taken, Smith contracted with James E. Serrell to deliver 40 miles worth. But by Fall of 1843, Serrell encountered problems with its manufacture and could not produce pipe quickly enough. In fact, he could not produce more than a quarter of what Morse required. The exasperated Morse revoked the contract and hired Benjamin Tatham & Co. when that firm agreed to deliver the necessary amount of pipe by November. This was acceptable to Morse, who planned to demonstrate the Baltimore-Washington telegraph line when Congress convened in December. However, the delivery date was far too optimistic.

Meanwhile, to get things moving, Morse started to put down the existing ten miles of pipe. To excavate the trench in which to lay the pipe, Smith hired his brother-in-law Levi S. Bartlett. Morse objected that Bartlett’s price was too high and would seem extravagant to Congress, but trenching got underway. When it did, it was hindered by rains; then it was found that the insulation on the wires (which Smith had secured) was failing, and the pipe being laid proved defective. With problems on all fronts, the entire telegraph project was jeopardized.

At this moment Morse received a letter from author Richard Dana requesting recollections of the artist Washington Allston, who had assisted Morse in his early career as a painter. Dana was editing the recently deceased Allston’s Lectures on Art and Poems. Short of time to respond as he would like, Morse explained to Dana that the telegraph had run into some problems.

Autograph letter signed, New York, September 8, 1843, to Dana. “I am really distressed that I am wholly unable ‘to make time’ to prepare what you desire respecting the pictures of dear Allston, or of even my recollections of him, unless such an account as ought to be given can be deferred until winter, and even then such is my situation of responsibility in relation to the Government enterprise in which I am engaged, that I do not positively promise, although you may be well assured that motives in addition to those that urge me are not needed to prompt me to the painful pleasure I should derive from the duty.

“Just at this moment, disasters by the late flood, have created incidentally an exigency which demands from me more than usual attention. It is with difficulty, and only by having risen an hour earlier than usual, that I have even gained time to answer your your kind and interesting letter. To you who can appreciate feeling, I need not amplify, nor reassert that I am truly distressed that I am so situated as to be unable for some time at least to comply with a request which under other circumstances, would not need to be urged. I send you one other letter, the last I ever received from Allston. The passages marked are characteristic of his natural benevolence.”

Using above-ground poles to run the wires, the first telegraph line was completed in the Spring. On May 11, 1844, Morse sent the first inter-city message. Then, on May 24, standing in the chamber of the Supreme Court, Morse gave the first public demonstration, sending the famous 19-letter message, “What hath God wrought”, to his assistant Albert Vail in Baltimore, who transmitted the message back. This remarkable event marked the beginning of a new era of communication, in which information could travel faster than any human by any means of conveyance.