MORSE, Samuel Finley Breese, American inventor and artist: b. Charlestown, Mass., 27 April 1791; d. 2 April 1872. He was the eldest son of the Rev. Jedidiah Morse (q.v.). After graduating at Yale in 1810, he visited England with Washington Allston (q.v.) to study paint ing. In 1813 his first attempt.at sculpture, a 'Dying Hercules,' won for him the gold medal of the Adelphi Society, and he received the same from the hands of the Duke of York. He returned to New York in 1815, and in 1824 25 organized an association which became the present National Academy of Design. He was its first president and continued in office for 16 years. He again spent three years in study in Europe, and then returned to New York to take the professorship in the University of the City of New York Morse had always been fond of the study of chemistry and natural philosophy, and it became at last a dominant pursuit with him. In conse quence of his intimacy with Prof. J. Freeman Dana, who was lecturing in the same institution on the electromagnet, Morse became interested in electrical matters, and in 1832, while return ing home from Havre on the packet ship Sully, he first conceived the idea of the telegraph. But though thus early devised, yet circum stances prevented the complete construction of the first recording apparatus in New York until 1835, when he exhibitetd it at the New York University building. In 1837 he made another and more perfect exhibition, and filed his caveat at Washington. He now considered his apparatus sufficiently perfected for commercial introduction, and in 1838 he asked Congress to construct an experimental line from Washing ton to Baltimore to show its practicability. From the skepticism of many and the ridicule of others, Morse's request was not acted upon by Congress, and, disappointed and almost dis heartened, he repaired to England in hopes of getting some foreign government to aid him. The result of this visit was a refusal to grant him letters patent in England, and the obtain ing of a useless brevet d'invention in France. For four years he struggled and put up with many privations, and, as if it were designed to try him up to the last moment, no recognition of the matter was taken till the last night of the Congressional session. He retired to bed dis heartened and discouraged before the session was closed. But in the morning— the morning
of 4 March 1843 — he was startled with the announcement that the desired aid of Congress had been obtained in the midnight hour of the expiring session, and $30,000 placed at his dis posal for his experiment between Washington and Baltimore. In 1844 the work was com pleted, and demonstrated to the world the prac ticability and the utility of the Morse system of the electromagnetic telegraph. The first message, °What bath God wrought?" was sent from the United States Supreme Court room in the Capitol at Washington to Baltimore, 24 May 1844. From that day the telegraph was a success.
Honors were showered upon him by Euro pean sovereigns and governments. Probably no American has ever received so many marks of distinction. In 1848 Yale College conferred on him the complimentary degree of LL.D., and in the same year he received the decoration of the Nishan Iftichar in diamonds from the sul tan of Turkey. Gold medals of scientific merit were awarded him by the king of Prussia (set in a massive gold snuff box), the king of Wiirtemberg, and the emperor of Austria. From the emperor of the French he received in 1856 the cross of chevalier of the legion of honor; in 1857 from the king of Denmark the cross of knight of the Dannebrog; and in 1858 from the queen of Spain the cross of knight commander of the Order of Isabella the Cath olic. The sum of 200,000 francs was presented to him jointly by the principal governments of Europe. It has been said that much of this money was spent in the ceaseless litigation and lawsuits in which he was involved in the de fense of his patent rights.
Professor Morse also had the distinction of laying the first submarine telegraph line, which was done in New York harbor in 1842. He likewise set up the first daguerreotype appara tus and was associated with John W. Draper in taking the first daguerreotypes in America. A letter from Professor Morse to the Secretary of the Treasury in 1843 seems to contain the earliest suggestion of the possibilities of an Atlantic cable. His last public act was the unveiling of the statue of Benjamin Franklin, in Printing House Square, New York. Con sult Prime, 'Life of S. F. B. Morse' (New York 1875) and Morse, E. L. (son), 'Samuel Finley Breese Morse, his Letters and Journals' (2 vols., Boston 1914).