“In the fall of the year 1832 I returned from Europe as a passenger with Mr. Morse in the ship Sully, Captain Pell master.  During the voyage the subject of an electric telegraph was one of frequent conversation.  Mr. Morse was most constant in pursuing it, and alone the one who seemed disposed to reduce it to a practical test, and I recollect that, for this purpose, he devised a system of signs for letters to be indicated and marked by a quick succession of strokes or shocks of the galvanic current, and I am sure of the fact that it was deemed by Mr. Morse perfectly competent to effect the result stated.  I did not suppose that any other person on board the ship claimed any merit in the invention, or was, in fact, interested to pursue it to maturity as Mr. Morse then seemed to be, nor have I been able since that time to recall any fact or circumstance to justify the claim of any person other than Mr. Morse to the invention.”

This clear statement of Mr. Fisher’s was cheerfully given in answer to a request for his recollections of the circumstances, in order to combat the claim of Dr. Charles T. Jackson that he had given Morse all the ideas of the telegraph, and that he should be considered at least its joint inventor.  This was the first of the many claims which the inventor was forced to meet.  It resulted in a lawsuit which settled conclusively that Morse was the sole inventor, and that Jackson was the victim of a mania which impelled him to claim the discoveries and achievements of others as his own.  I shall have occasion to refer to this matter again.

It is to be noted that Mr. Fisher refers to “signs for letters.”  Whether Morse actually had devised or spoken of a conventional alphabet at that time cannot be proved conclusively, but that it must have been in his mind the “Cuvier” referred to before indicates.

Others of his fellow-passengers gave testimony to the same effect, and Captain Pell stated under oath that, when he saw the completed instrument in 1837, he recognized it as embodying the principles which Morse had explained to him on the Sully; and he added:  “Before the vessel was in port, Mr. Morse addressed me in these words:  ’Well, Captain, should you hear of the telegraph one of these days as the wonder of the world, remember the discovery was made on board the good ship Sully.’”

Morse always clung tenaciously to the date of 1832 as that of his invention, and, I claim, with perfect justice.  While it required much thought and elaboration to bring it to perfection; while he used the published discoveries of others in order to make it operate over long distances; while others labored with him in order to produce a practical working apparatus, and to force its recognition on a skeptical world, the basic idea on which everything else depended was his; it was original with him, and he pursued it to a successful issue, himself making certain new and essential discoveries and inventions.  While, as I have said, he made use of the discoveries of others, these men in turn were dependent on the earlier investigations of scientists who preceded them, and so the chain lengthens out.