The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1873-02-13
The True Story Of The First Telegram.

THE bill met with neither sneers nor
opposition in the Senate, but the business
of that House went on with discouraging
slowness. AT twilight on the last evening
of the session March 3, lS43) there were
ll9 bills before it. As it seemed impossible
for it to be reached in regular course before
the hour of adjournment should arrive,
the Professor, who had anXiOusly watched
the tardy movements of business all day
from the gallery of the Senate cham Der,
went with a sad heart to his hotel and pre-
pared to leave for New York at an early
hour next morning. While at breakfast. Il
servant informed him that young lady
desired to see him in the pallOr.
There he met Miss Annie Ellsworth,
then a young school girl - the daughter
of his intimate friend, Hon. Henry l.. Els
worth, the first Commissioner of Patents
who said, rs she extended her hand to
him:
:" have come to congratulate YOU"
Upon what 2" inquired the Professor
Upon the passage OF your bill," she
replied.
last evening. You must be mistaken"
" Not at ALL" she responded. " Father
sent me to fell you that your bill was
passed. He remained until the session
closed, and yours was the last bill but one
acted upon, and it was passed just five
minutes before the adjournment: and
am so glad to be the first one to tell you.
Mother says, too, that you must come
home with me to breakfast"
The invitation was readily accepted,
and the joy in the household was un-
bounded. Both Mr.. and Mrs. Els
worth had fully believed in the project,
and the former, in his confidence in it and
in his warm friendship for Prof. Morse,
had spent all the closing hours of the ses-
sion in the Senate chamber, doing Whit
he could to help the bill along, and giving
it all the influence Of his high personal
and official position.
the Professor thanked her again and
again for bearing him such pleasant It'd
ings, and assured her that she should
send over the wires the first message, as
her reward. The matter was talked over
in the family, and Mrs. Ellsworth sug-
gested a message which Prof. Morse re-
ferred to the daughter, for her approval;
and this was the one which was subse-
quently sent.
A little more than year after that
time, the line between Washington and
Baltimore was completed. Prof. Morse
was in the former city, and Mr.. Alfred
Vail, his assistant, in the latter; the first
in the chamber of the Supreme Court,
the last in Mount Clare depot, when the
circuit being perfect, Prof Morse sent
to Miss Ellsworth for her message, and
it came.
"WHAT HATH COP WROUGHT"
1t was sent in triplicate in the dot-and-
line language of the instrument to Balti-
more, and was the first message ever trans
mitted By a recording telegraph.
The story of this first message has been
often told with many eXaggerations. 1t
has roamed about Europe with various
romantic material attached to it, origin
ating in the French Imagination, and has
started up anew from time to time in our
own country under fresh forms, but the
above story is simply ard literally true.
An inventor in despair receives the news
of his unexpected success from his friends
daughter, and he makes her a promise
which he keeps, and thus links her name
with his own, and with an invention which
becomes one of the controlling instruments
of civilization for all time. -Sefibaer's
for March.