Samuel Morse (1791 - 1872)
Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born on April 27, 1791 in Charlestown, Massachusetts. For formal education, Samuel entered Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts at the age of nine, and Yale College at the age 14 in 1805. During his college years he earned money by painting portraits and studied the subjects of religious philosophy, mathematics and science of horse. He also attended a few lectures about electricity, but mostly went in the direction of art. First moment when Samuel Morse came to idea to use electromagnetism as a means of communication was in 1832. During one of his sea voyages he entered into conversation with a scientist Charles Thomas Jackson who described him some of the properties of electromagnetism. After finding out that information sent via copper cables travels instantaneously over great distances, Morse started devising the plan for the creation of single-wire telegraph. After witnessing Jackson's many experiments with electromagnet, he designed his first telegraph and submitted his findings to the US patent office. With the financial help of the machinist and inventor, Alfred Vail, he organized public showing on January 11, 1838 at the grounds of the Speedwell Ironworks factory. Without an additional power source, the telegraph had the ability to send messages over two miles, and first message that was transmitted in the presence of the local crows was "A patient waiter is no loser".
In 1842, Morse successfully deployed his telegraph system between the two Capitol committee rooms in the Washington D.C. During 1843 he successfully deployed the 38 mile telegraph line along the way of Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. First official use of that system was on May 1, 1844, when the news Whig Party's nomination of Henry Clay for U.S. President was telegraphed from Baltimore to Washington. As his creation started spreading across the eastern coast of America, Morse continued his struggle to obtain the rights for the telegraph patents. After a long legal battle, he secured the rights to being called "Inventor of the Telegraph". By 1851 Morse's telegraph was adopted as a standard in all European countries. However, even a man of such power had to die. Samuel Morse died of pneumonia at his home in New York City on April 2, 1872.
In 1842, Morse successfully deployed his telegraph system between the two Capitol committee rooms in the Washington D.C. During 1843 he successfully deployed the 38 mile telegraph line along the way of Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. First official use of that system was on May 1, 1844, when the news Whig Party's nomination of Henry Clay for U.S. President was telegraphed from Baltimore to Washington. As his creation started spreading across the eastern coast of America, Morse continued his struggle to obtain the rights for the telegraph patents. After a long legal battle, he secured the rights to being called "Inventor of the Telegraph". By 1851 Morse's telegraph was adopted as a standard in all European countries. However, even a man of such power had to die. Samuel Morse died of pneumonia at his home in New York City on April 2, 1872.