CHAPTER I


APRIL 27. 1791--SEPTEMBER 8, 1810

Birth of S.F.B. Morse.--His parents.--Letters of Dr. Belknap and Rev. Mr.
Wells.--Phillips, Andover.--First letter.--Letter from his father.--
Religious letter from Morse to his brothers.--Letters from the mother to
her sons.--Morse enters Yale.--His journey there.--Difficulty in keeping
up with his class.--Letter of warning from his mother.--Letters of
Jedediah Morse to Bishop of London and Lindley Murray.--Morse becomes
more studious.--Bill of expenses.--Longing to travel and interest in
electricity.--Philadelphia and New York.--Graduates from college.--Wishes
to accompany Allston to England, but submits to parents' desires.

Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, on the
27th day of April, A.D. 1791. He came of good Puritan stock, his father,
Jedediah Morse, being a militant clergyman of the Congregational Church,
a fighter for orthodoxy at a time when Unitarianism was beginning to
undermine the foundations of the old, austere, childlike faith.

These battles of the churches seem far away to us of the twentieth
century, but they were very real to the warriors of those days, and,
while many of the tenets of their faith may seem narrow to us, they were
gospel to the godly of that tune, and reverence, obedience, filial piety,
and courtesy were the rule and not the exception that they are to-day.

Jedediah Morse was a man of note in his day, known and respected at home
and abroad; the friend of General Washington and other founders of the
Republic; the author of the first American Geography and Gazetteer. His