246 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



married Miss Sarah E. Griswold. Her mother was a cousin 

 of Prof. Morse, and her father was an army officer. The lady 

 was a mute. While Prof. Morse could now enjoy comfort and 

 happiness he was by no means idle. The constant attempts to 

 displace or infringe upon his invention entailed upon him a 

 great amount of labour in correspondence, and in collecting 

 and arranging evidence to combat them. Yet he was able to 

 enjoy considerable compensation for his many years of toil and 

 privation. And his own invention ministered to his pleasure 

 and comfort, for with a telegraphic instrument on his library 

 table he could converse with friends and correspondents in 

 every important place in his own land, and in later years could 

 exchange messages with those on the opposite side of the At- 

 lantic. Several years later he bought for a winter residence a 

 beautiful house in New York, No. 5 West Twenty-second Street. 

 The building is now marked with a tablet bearing this inscrip- 

 tion : " In this house S. F. B. Morse lived for many years and 

 died." 



Prof. Morse was one of the few great inventors who re- 

 ceive an adequate pecuniary reward for their services to the 

 world, and to whom merited honours come while they are alive. 

 He received the degree of Doctor of Laws from Yale College, 

 and was elected to membership in learned societies of the 

 United States, France, Belgium, Sweden, and Switzerland. 

 Orders and decorations were bestowed upon him between 1848 

 and 1864 by the sovereigns of Turkey, Prussia, Wurtemberg, 

 Austria, France, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, and Italy. This 

 list stands in chronological order. It will be observed that 

 the Sultan of Turkey took precedence in honouring the invent- 

 or of the telegraph over the rulers of many more pretentious 

 nations, while England does not appear at all. We may well 

 believe the statement of his biographer that " Prof. Morse re. 

 ceived a greater number of honorary distinctions than were 

 ever bestowed upon any other private citizen." 



The idea of laying telegraphic lines under water was con- 

 ceived by Prof. Morse early in the history of his invention ; he 

 was known to have mentioned it in 1837 and 1838. His first 

 submarine cable was laid by him from a rowboat, between 

 Castle Garden and Governor Island in New York harbour one 

 moonlight night in 1842, and was picked up on the anchor of a 

 vessel the next morning and broken while Morse was sending 



