LETTER OF MORSE TO HIS PARENTS, OCTOBER 18, 1815.

Mr. D. C. De Forest—­Mrs. D. C. De Forest
    From paintings by Morse now in the gallery of the Yale School
    of the Fine Arts.

Lucretia Pickering Walker, wife or S. F. B. Morse, and two children
    Painted by Morse.

Study for portrait of Lafayette
    Now in New York Public Library.

Elizabeth A. Morse
    Painted by Morse.

Jeremiah Evarts
    From a portrait painted by Morse and owned by Sherman Evarts, Esq.

De Witt Clinton
    Painted by Morse.  Owned by the Metropolitan Museum, New York.

Henry clay
    Painted by Morse.  Owned by the Metropolitan Museum, New York.

SUSAN W. MORSE.  ELDEST DAUGHTER OF THE ARTIST

SAMUEL F.B.  MORSE

HIS LETTERS AND JOURNALS

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.