1838
In January, Morse changes from using a telegraphic dictionary, where words are represented by number codes, to using a code for each letter. This eliminates the need to encode and decode each word to be transmitted.
On January 24, Morse demonstrates the telegraph to his friends in his university studio. On February 8, Morse demonstrates the telegraph before a scientific committee at Philadelphia's Franklin Institute. He later exhibits the telegraph before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Commerce, chaired by Representative F. O. J. Smith of Maine. On February 21, Morse demonstrates the telegraph to President Martin Van Buren and his cabinet.
In March, Congressman Smith becomes a partner in the telegraph, along with Morse, Alfred Vail, and Leonard Gale. On April 6, Smith sponsors a bill in Congress to appropriate $30,000 to build a fifty-mile telegraph line, but the bill is not acted upon. Smith conceals his part-interest in the telegraph and serves out his full term of office.
In May, Morse travels to Europe in order to secure patent rights for his electromagnetic telegraph in England, France, and Russia. He is successful in France. In England, Cooke puts his needle telegraph into operation on the London and Blackwall Railway.
1839
In Paris, Morse meets
Louis Daguerre, the creator of the daguerreotype, and publishes the first American description of this process of photography. Morse becomes one of the first Americans to make
daguerreotypes in the United States.
1840
Samuel Morse is granted a United States
patent for his telegraph. Morse opens a daguerreotype portrait studio in New York with John William Draper. Morse teaches the process to several others, including Mathew Brady, the future Civil War photographer.
1841
In the spring, Samuel Morse runs again as a nativist candidate for mayor of New York City. A forged letter appears in a newspaper announcing that Morse has withdrawn from the election. In the confusion, he receives fewer than one hundred votes.
1842
In October, Samuel Morse experiments with underwater transmissions. Two miles of cable is submerged between the Battery and Governor's Island in New York Harbor and signals are sent successfully.
1843
On March 3, Congress votes to appropriate $30,000 for an experimental telegraph line from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, Maryland. Construction of the telegraph line begins several months later. Initially, the cable is placed in lead pipes underground, using a machine designed by Ezra Cornell; when that fails, above-ground poles are used.
1844
On May 24, Samuel Morse sends the telegraph message "
What hath God wrought?" from the Supreme Court chamber in the Capitol in Washington, D.C., to the B & O Railroad Depot in Baltimore, Maryland.
1845
On January 3 in England, John Tawell is arrested for the murder of his mistress. He escapes by train to London, but his description is wired ahead by telegraph police are waiting for him when he arrives. In the spring, Morse selects Amos Kendall, former
U.S. Postmaster-General, to be his agent. Vail and Gale agree to take on Kendall as their agent as well. In May, Kendall and F. O. J. Smith create the Magnetic Telegraph Company to extend the telegraph from Baltimore to Philadelphia and New York. By the summer, Morse returns to Europe to promote and secure his telegraph rights.
1846
The telegraph line is extended from Baltimore to Philadelphia. New York is now connected to Washington, D.C., Boston, and Buffalo. Different telegraph companies begin to appear, sometimes building competing lines side by side. Morse's patent claims are threatened, especially by the telegraph companies of Henry O'Reilly.
