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Heroes of the Telegraph
·
John Munro
42
The
year
of
the
telegraph--1837--was
an
important
one
for
Morse,
as
it
was
for
Cooke
and
Wheatstone.
In
the
privacy
of
his
rooms
he
had
constructed,
with
his
own
hands,
a
model
of
his
apparatus,
and
fortune
began
to
favour
him.
Thanks
to
Professor
Gale,
he
improved
the
electro-magnet,
employed
a
more
powerful
battery,
and
was
thus
able
to
work
through
a
much
longer
line.
In
February,
1837,
the
American
House
of
Representatives
passed
a
resolution
asking
the
Secretary
of
the
Treasury
to
report
on
the
propriety
of
establishing
a
system
of
telegraphs
for
the
United
States,
and
on
March
10
issued
a
circular
of
inquiry,
which
fell
into
the
hands
of
the
inventor,
and
probably
urged
him
to
complete
his
apparatus,
and
bring
it
under
the
notice
of
the
Government.
Lack
of
mechanical
skill,
ignorance
of
electrical
science,
as
well
as
want
of
money,
had
so
far
kept
it
back.
But
the
friend
in
need
whom
he
required
was
nearer
than
he
anticipated.
On
Saturday,
September
2,
1837,
while
Morse
was
exhibiting
the
model
to
Professor
Daubeny,
of
Oxford,
then
visiting
the
States,
and
others,
a
young
man
named
Alfred
Vail
became
one
of
the
spectators,
and
was
deeply
impressed
with
the
results.
Vail
was
born
in
1807,
a
son
of
Judge
Stephen
Vail,
master
of
the
Speedwell
ironworks
at
Morristown,
New
Jersey.
After
leaving
the
village
school
his
father
took
him
and
his
brother
George
into
the
works;
but
though
Alfred
inherited
a
mechanical
turn
of
mind,
he
longed
for
a
higher
sphere,
and
on
attaining
to
his
majority
he
resolved
to
enter
the
Presbyterian
Church.
In
1832
he
went
to
the
University
of
the
city
of
New
York,
where
he
graduated
in
October,
1836.
Near
the
close
of
the
term,
however,
his
health
failed,
and
he
was
constrained
to
relinquish
his
clerical
aims.
While
in
doubts
as
to
his
future
he
chanced
to
see
the
telegraph,
and
that
decided
him.
He
says:
'I
accidentally
and
without
invitation
called
upon
Professor
Morse
at
the
University,
and
found
him
with
Professors
Torrey
and
Daubeny
in
the
mineralogical
cabinet
and
lecture-room
of
Professor
Gale,
where
Professor
Morse
was
exhibiting
to
these
gentlemen
an
apparatus
which
he
called
his
Electro-Magnetic
Telegraph.
There
were
wires
suspended
in
the
room
running
from
one
end
of
it
to
the
other,
and
returning
many
times,
making
a
length
of
seventeen
hundred
feet.
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