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Samuel F. B. Morse

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:10,000.00 - 12,000.00 USD
Samuel F. B. Morse

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Auction Date:2014 Apr 16 @ 18:00 (UTC-05:00 : EST/CDT)
Location:236 Commercial St., Suite 100, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
ADS, signed “S. F. Morse Sup. Elec. Mag. Tel.,” one page, 8 x 12.5, July 10, 1843. Morses’s retained copy of a bill to the US government for construction of a telegraph, penned in his own hand, headed “Copy 4th Report, Abstract C. of exp. On acct of Labor for Elec. Mag. Telegraph for month ending July 10th 1843.” The document lists eight employees and their wages. In fine condition., with two trivial stains to left edge.

On March 3, 1843, Congress had passed an act appropriating $30,000 for construction of an experimental 38-mile telegraph line between Washington and Baltimore along the right-of-way of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, specifically naming Morse as the superintendent of the project. This document represents Morse’s fourth monthly report of his laborer’s wages, following April, May, and June of 1843, after President Tyler had approved the bill. Of the men listed, Ebenezer Chase supervised covering of the telegraph wire with cotton twine for insulation; his son, E. E. Chase, soldered and covered the joints of the wire, assisted by Benjamin F. Taylor and Lewis O. Wood; and Gilbert Smith worked on an embossing register that would record the dots and dashes on paper tape. Construction of the telegraph finished in May of the following year, and it was officially opened on May 24, 1844, when Morse sent the now-famous words, ‘What hath God wrought,’ from the Supreme Court chamber in the Capitol to Mount Clare Station in Baltimore. This was the first long-distance telegraph system set up to run overland in the United States—the first step of a communications revolution.