MORSE, SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE, LL.D. (ante). Prof. Morse probably had his interest first awakened in the subject of electromagnetism, through conversations with prof.
1 J. Freeman Dana, who lectured in New ork on that subject in 1826-27, and who was a personal friend. Morse first conceived the idea of the telegraph while on board the packet-ship Sally, on his way from Europe to America in 1832, and was led up to the conception by the then recent discovery in France of a method for obtaining the electric slur]: from the magnet. This fact was established by the testimony of pas sengers on b rird the ship, and by his own evidence, and that of drawings made by him at the tini 'Before the close of the year 1832 a portion of the apparatus which he had devised had tram constructed in New York, but it wits nat until three years later that, in a room in the New York university building, in that city, he showed the telegraph oper ating with half a mile of wire. In Sept., 1837. he made a public exhibition of his discov and in that year filed his caveat at Washington. No tangible result, following his appeal to congress for aid during that session, prof. Morse visited Europe witli tin hope of enlisting the interests of foreign governments in his invention. In this hope ha was unsuccessful, and he returned to New York, where, and in Washington, he strug gled under serious privations during the four years which elapsed before lie obtainc congressional aid. And after this aid had been granted, and through the means th afforded lie had succeeded in establishing a working telegraph line, lie (lid not obtain his full reward for the service he had accomplished without tedious and expensive litigation with parties who contested his claims. The number and character of the honors heaped
upon prof. Morsygthoe?!.A?f_ igentiou have probably never been equaled in the case of any other American. He reecive6 gold medals from Prussia, Austria, and WiIrtemberg. France conferred upon him, through the emperor Napoleon, the cross of the chevalier of the legion of honor; Denmark made him knight commander of the first class of the Danebrog, and Spain, knight commander of the order of Isabella the Catholic; from Italy lie received the cross of the order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus, and from Portugal that of the order of the tower and the sword. Turkey be stowed upon him, at the hands of the Sultan, the decoration of the Niskan Iflikar, and Yale college conferred upon him in 1846, the degree of LL.D. Public banquets were given him in London, Paris, and New York, and in June, 1871, a bronze statue of him was unveiled in Central Park.
Prof. Morse set up the first daguerreotype apparatus, and took the first daguerreo types in America; he also laid the first submarine telegraph line (in New York harbor, in 1842); and from him, in a letter to the secretary of the treasury of the United States in 1843, seems to have come the first suggestion of an Atlantic telegraph. His death occurred about three months after his last public act—the unveiling of the statue of Ben jamin Franklin, in Printing-house square, New York.