SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE. 



1791-1872. 



THE inventor of the telegraph ! From Franklin to Edison 

 no American has won so much honour from scientific achieve- 

 ments as he. Doubtless the wondrous character of the works 

 wrought by these three men is due to the fact that they all 

 dealt with the still mysterious though now familiar force elec- 

 tricity. Morse's life, indeed, seemed a continuation of Frank- 

 lin's, for he was born but little over a mile from the Ameri- 

 can philosopher's birthplace and but little over a year after 

 he died. 



Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born at the foot of Breed's 

 Hill, in Charlestown, Mass., now a part of Boston, April 27, 

 1791. His earliest paternal ancestor in this country was An- 

 thony Morse, who came from Wiltshire, England, and settled at 

 Newbury, Mass. In the sixth generation from Anthony was 

 Jedediah Morse, D. D., father of Samuel. He was pastor of 

 the First Congregational Church in Charlestown, author of the 

 American Geography and a Gazetteer of the United States, 

 and was very active in the work of establishing religious and 

 benevolent institutions, such as the Andover Theological Sem- 

 inary, the American Board of Foreign Missions, the American 

 Bible Society, the American Tract Society, and various re- 

 ligious periodicals. Dr. Eliot said of him, "What an aston- 

 ishing impetus that man has ! " President Dwight declared, 

 " He is as full of resources as an egg is of meat " ; and Daniel 

 Webster spoke of him as "always thinking, always writing, 

 always talking, always acting." He married, May 14, 1789, 

 Elizabeth Ann Breese, daughter of Rebecca (Finley) and Sam- 

 uel Breese. Rebecca Finley was a daughter of Dr. Samuel 

 Finley, President of Princeton College. To Dr. and Mrs. 

 Morse eleven children were born, of whom only Samuel and 

 two younger brothers survived infancy. 



