Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals In Two Volumes, Volume I.

Excerpt

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 wife, Elizabeth Ann Breese, granddaughter of Samuel Finley, president of Princeton College, was a woman of great strength and yet sweetness of character; adored by her family and friends, a veritable mother in Israel.

Into this serene home atmosphere came young Finley Morse, the eldest of eleven children, only three of whom survived their infancy. The other two were Sidney Edwards and Richard Carey, both eminent men in their day.

Dr. Belknap, of Boston, in a letter to a friend in New York says:—

"Congratulate the Monmouth Judge [Mr. Breese] on the birth of a grandson…. As to the child, I saw him asleep, so can say nothing of his eye or his genius peeing through it. He may have the sagacity of a Jewish rabbi, or the profundity of a Calvin, or the sublimity of a Homer for aught I know. But time will show forth all things."

This sounds almost prophetic in the light of future days.

[Illustration: HOUSE IN WHICH MORSE WAS BORN, IN CHARLESTOWN, MASS.]

The following letter from the Reverend Mr. Wells is quaint and characteristic of the times:—

MY DEAR LITTLE BOY,—As a small testimony of my respect and obligation to your excellent Parents and of my love to you, I send you with this six (6) English Guineas. They are pretty playthings enough, and in the Country I came from many people are fond of them. Your Papa will let you look at them and shew them to Edward, and then he will take care of them, and, by the time you grow up to be a Man, they will under Papa's wise management increase to double their present number....