Doctor Jackson claimed, after Morse had perfected and established his telegraph, that the idea had been his own, and that Morse had secured it from him on board the Sully.  But Doctor Jackson was not a practical man who either could or did put any ideas he may have had to practical use.  At the most he seems to have simply started Morse’s mind along a new train of thought.  The idea of using the current as a carrier of messages, though it was new to Morse, had occurred to others earlier, as we have seen.  But at the very outset Morse set himself to find a means by which he might make the current not only signal the message, but actually record it.  Before he landed from the Sully he had worked out sketches of a printing telegraph.  In this the current actuated an electro-magnet on the end of which was a rod.  This rod was to mark down dots and dashes on a moving tape of paper.

Thus was the idea born.  Of course the telegraph was still far from an accomplished fact.  Without the improved electro-magnets and the relay of Professor Henry, Morse had not yet even the basic ideas upon which a telegraph to operate over considerable distances could be constructed.  But Morse was possessed of Yankee imagination and practical ability.  He was possessed of a fair technical education for that day, and he eagerly set himself to attaining the means to accomplish his end.  That he realized just what he sought is shown by his remark to the captain of the Sully when he landed at New York.  “Well, Captain,” he remarked, “should you hear of the telegraph one of these days as the wonder of the world, remember that the discovery was made on board the good ship Sully.”

With the notion of using an electro-magnet as a receiver, an alphabet consisting of dots and dashes, and a complete faith in the practical possibilities of the whole, Morse went to work in deadly earnest.  But poverty still beset him and it was necessary for him to devote most of his time to his paintings, that he might have food, shelter, and the means to buy materials with which to experiment.  From 1832 to 1835 he was able to make but small progress.  In the latter year he secured an appointment as professor of the literature of the arts of design in the newly established University of the City of New York.  He soon had his crude apparatus set up in a room at the college and in 1835 was able to transmit messages.  He now had a little more leisure and a little more money, but his opportunities were still far from what he would have desired.  The principal aid which came to him at the university was from Professor Gale, a teacher of chemistry.  Gale became greatly interested in Morse’s apparatus, and was able to give him much practical assistance, becoming a partner in the enterprise.  Morse knew little of the work of other experimenters in the field of electricity and Gale was able to tell Morse what had been learned by others.  Particularly he brought to Morse’s attention the discoveries of another American, Prof.  Joseph Henry.