Morse's patent : full exposure of Dr. Chas. T. Jackson's pretensions to the invention of the American electro-magnetic telegraph / by Amos Kendall.

  • Kendall, Amos, 1789-1869.
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Morse's patent : full exposure of Dr. Chas. T. Jackson's pretensions to the invention of the American electro-magnetic telegraph / by Amos Kendall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    Capt. Pell answered on the 27th September, 1837, and among other things, said : lam happy to say I have a distinct remembrance of your suggesting, as a thought newly occurred to you, the possibility of a telegraphic communication being effected by electric wires. As the passage progressed, and your idea developed itself, it lie- came frequently a subject of conversation. Difficulty alter difii- culty was suggested as obstacles to its operation, which your in- genuity still labored to remove, until your invention, passing from its first crude state through different grades of perfectionment, was, in seeming, matured to an available instrument, wanting only patronage to perfect it and call it into reality. And J sin- cerely trust that circumstances may not deprive you of the re- ward due to the invention, which, whatever be its source in Europe, is with you at least, 1 am convinced, original. Mr. Rives answered on the 21st September; 1837, and said : I retain a distinct recollection of your having explained to me the conception of this ingenious invention during our voyage from France to the United States in the autum of 1832, and that it was more than once the subject of conversation between us, in which I suggested difficulties, that you met and solved with great promptitude and confidence. Mr. Charles C. Palmer had left the country, we believe, and did not answer. After Prof. Morse received Dr. Jackson's letter of the 7th Nov., 1837, in which he attributed to Mr. Rives or Mr. Fisher the first suggestion of sending news by electricity, he wrote another let- ter to Mr. Fisher dated November 14th, 1837, in which he pro- pounded the following questions, viz : First. Do you recollect having made the observation attribu- ted eithpr to you or to Mr. Rives I Second. 1 lave you any impression, from your recollection of what occurred on board the Sully, that any other person than myself, was the inventor of the Electric Telegraph V On the 17th, Mr. Fisher answered to, the first inquiry, certainly not; and it would have been strange, if not silly, to have done so since the first mention of an Electric or Galvanic Telegraph by you implied the possibility. To the second he answered, I had no idea that any of our fel- low-passengers could claim the credit of it. I am quite sure 1 re- ceived my first idea of it from you; that you were most interested in it 5 that you alone seemed inclined to test its practicability after landing. &c. Prof. Morse also wrote to Mr. Rives making similar inquiries, and received an answer dated March 1st, 1838, in which that gentleman says: