Morse's genius sparks a revolution

Artist becomes telegraph inventor

By Carleton Mabee
For the Poughkeepsie Journal

Samuel F.B. Morse, the artist and inventor, lived much of his life in Poughkeepsie. As a young man, he was one of the most respected American painters of his time.

In his mid-life, he turned away from his art to concentrate on his invention of the electric telegraph. In our time, he may be called a father of the communications revolution that began in his time and continues intensely today.

Born near Boston in 1791, Morse was the son of a distinguished clergyman and geographer. After studying art in England, he found Americans did not respond well to the grand historical landscapes he had learned to wish to paint, forcing him to spend more of his time painting portraits.

After Morse settled in New York City, he became a founder and long-time president of the National Academy of the Arts of Design. He also became a professor of art at New York University. But still he could not earn enough to bring his wife and family to New York to live, which pushed him to look for other means of support.

In 1832, Morse conceived of the idea of an electromagnetic telegraph. By 1837, he had abandoned his painting to turn his full attention to developing his telegraph invention. By 1838, he had developed the system of dots and dashes for sending telegraph messages that later became known worldwide as the Morse code. After a long struggle, he had finally secured enough funds from Congress by 1844 to build an experimental telegraph line from Washington to Baltimore and was able to send the famous first message over it, ‘‘What hath God wrought!’’

Beauty at Locust Grove

By 1847, his income from the telegraph allowed him to buy an old farm overlooking the Hudson River, just south of the City of Poughkeepsie. He named it Locust Grove. He described it this way in 1847 in a letter to a family member: ‘‘There is every variety of surface, plain, hill, dale, glens, running streams and ... the Hudson ... constantly showing a varied scene.’’

He rebuilt its old farmhouse, operated its farm and developed its landscape. He presided over it and his large family with dignity.

During the Civil War, Morse ran for Congress from his Poughkeepsie district as a peace man, a Democrat opposed to President Lincoln, but was defeated. During the next few years, he became a philanthropist, giving generously to churches, to poor artists, and to Vassar College, of which he was a founder and trustee.

During Morse’s time, his telegraph speeded trains, making it possible to send to signalmen along the line information about track conditions and train schedules. It speeded the distribution of news.

Since Morse’s death in 1872, his reputation as an artist has grown, and his telegraph has led to other communication inventions, such as the telephone, radio, television and the Internet. Morse may be considered the father of a whole series of instant communication inventions that altered the nature of the world.

His Locust Grove home was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1963. Now called the Samuel F.B. Morse Historic Site, it is being preserved, with the assistance of donors, as a private, not-for-profit museum open to the public. A new visitors center is also on the site.

The estate’s friends hope it will make possible the more effective presentation of the story of Locust Grove, of Morse as both artist and inventor and of the whole communications revolution that he fathered.

Carleton Mabee is the author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Morse called, ‘‘The American Leonardo, A Life of Samuel F.B. Morse.’’ Mabee, a trustee of Locust Grove, is a retired professor of history at the State University of New York at New Paltz.