seph Henry, of the
Smithsonian Institute, was the real inventor of the electro-magnetic
telegraph, though that honor has been given and will continue to be
given by most people to Professor Samuel F.B. Morse, whose relation to
the telegraph was much the same as that of Fulton to the steamboat. He
added to the ideas of those before him and first brought them into
practical use.

Professor Morse deserves all the credit he has received as one of the
greatest of inventors. He studied painting when young and became an
artist of considerable skill. As early as 1832 he conceived the idea of
an electro-magnetic telegraph and began his experiments. The project
absorbed all his energies until he became what is called in these days a
"crank," which is often the name of one who gives all his thoughts and
efforts to the development of a single project. He drifted away from his
relatives, who looked upon him as a visionary dreamer, and when his
ragged clothes and craving stomach demanded attention, he gave
instruction in drawing to a few students who clung to him.

Light gradually dawned upon Morse, and he continued his labors under
discouragements that would have overcome almost any other man. He
secured help from Alfred Vail, of Morristown, N.J., who invented the
alphabetical characters and many essential features of the system,
besides furnishing Morse with funds, without which his labors would have
come to a standstill. There was not enough capital at command to
construct a line of telegraph, and Morse and his few friends haunted
Congress with their plea for an appropriation. Ezra Cornell, founder of
Cornell University, gave assistance, and, finally, in the very closing
days of the session of Congress in 1844, an appropriation of $30,000 was
made to defray the expenses of a line between Baltimore and Washington.

[Illustration: THE SPEEDWELL IRON WORKS, MORRISTOWN, N.J.

Here was forged the shaft for the Savannah, the first steamship which
crossed the Atlantic. Here was manufactured the tires, axles and cranks
of the first American locomotive. Shop in which Vail and Baxter
constructed the first telegraph apparatus, invented by Morse, for
exhibition before Congress.]

The invention, like most others of an important nature, was subjected to
merciless ridicule. A wag hung a pair of muddy boots out of a window in
Washington, with a placard announcing that they belonged to a man who
had just arrived by telegraph; another placed a