rbor manned their yards, and shouted a wild welcome to the
victorious "Shannon." But the flag which floated from the masthead of
the British frigate held no more honorable position than that which
covered the dead body of the American hero.

THE STORY OF THE TELEGRAPH AND THE STEAMBOAT.

It will always be a source of commendable pride to the people of New
Jersey, that their State was never backward in the political, social, or
mechanical progress of this country. In fact, several of the most
important steps in great movements for popular good have been made upon
the soil of the State.

Among the claims to preeminence which New Jersey can make in this
respect is the claim that the first telegraphic message that was ever
transmitted through a wire was sent at the Iron Works at Speedwell, near
Morristown, at which place Professor Morse and Mr. Vail, son of the
proprietor of the works, were making experiments with the telegraph. The
first public message was sent more than six years later from Washington
to Baltimore; but the message at Speedwell stands first, in the point of
priority, of all the dispatches by magnetic telegraph which the world
has known.

When Professor Morse conceived the idea of communicating between distant
points by means of electricity, he was not able to carry out experiments
for himself, and having made the acquaintance of Alfred Vail, son of the
proprietor of the Iron Works at Speedwell, he gave up his business as a
portrait painter and went to Speedwell, where he and Mr. Vail worked
hard in experimenting with the new invention. At last, when they thought
they had brought it to such a point that they could make practical use
of it, they determined to try to send a message through three miles of
wire. If that could be done, they believed they could send one to any
distance desirable.

Currents of electricity had been sent through long lengths of wire by
Mr. Morse in previous experiments, but in these cases nothing more was
attempted than signals; no words or message had been sent, and the
proposed experiment, therefore, was of great importance. Its success or
failure meant success or failure to the magnetic telegraph.

The upper story of a house on the grounds of the Iron Works was one very
large room, and round the walls of this they stretched their three miles
of wire, until the room was encircled by lines of wire, one above
another, but nowhere touching. At one end of this wire was p