After the Fact by Owen J. Hurd

Author:Owen J. Hurd [Hurd, Owen J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101610725
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2012-08-07T04:00:00+00:00

LOOSE ENDS

Before he became an inventor, Morse was a respected artist—a painter of portraits, landscapes, and historical scenes. When he decided to focus his efforts on telegraphy in the 1830s, Morse turned his back on a promising artistic career. In fact, he left behind a never-finished tableau, The Gem of the Republic, a representation of the signing of the Mayflower Compact. Previously, Morse was also commissioned to create portraits of important historical figures such as John Adams, the Marquis de Lafayette, and James Monroe. He even created some of the first portraits ever made using a new technology invented by Louis Daguerre. Morse operated his daguerreotype studio from 1839 to 1840, making portraits of wealthy customers and teaching pupils like Mathew Brady the new art form.

Morse’s assistant, Alfred Vail, never earned the recognition or remuneration that he deserved, even though he helped develop the technology of telegraphy in profound ways. Trained as a machinist in the family-owned shop, Vail engineered major improvements to Morse’s hardware—the transmitter and receiver—as well as enhancements to the code that most famously bears Morse’s name. Feeling squeezed out, Vail quit the telegraph business in 1848, just as the industry was coming into its own. Morse minimized Vail’s contributions even after his loyal assistant’s death in 1859. At the unveiling of a monument to Morse in 1871, the inventor mentioned Vail’s name only in passing, a snub that infuriated Vail’s widow, who was in attendance.

Morse fathered eight children with two wives. None of them really amounted to much. One was convicted of murdering an Indian, but was later exonerated and became a cowboy in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. Two of Morse’s children appear to have committed suicide, though there was no definitive proof. His daughter Susan disappeared during a ferry ride, and his son Arthur “fell” onto railroad tracks moments before an approaching train crushed him to death. There’s no doubt about the suicides of two of his grandchildren—one a son of Susan’s, the other a son of Charles’s.

Dr. Charles Jackson was one of the people who claimed that he and not Morse had come up with the idea for the telegraph. His credibility was later called into question when he made similar claims about several other discoveries, including the use of ether as an anesthetic and the digestive functions of the stomach. He also claimed to have made advances in ballistics technology.

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