Lightning Man_ The Accursed Life of Samuel F. B. Morse - Kenneth Silverman [81]
Vail had been present on September 2 for the public debut of Morse’s telegraph at the University. By one account he was greatly impressed, and then and there offered Morse his assistance. By another, he returned a few days later to discuss the invention, skeptical that it could work over long-enough distances to be commercially useful. Morse was aware of the problem, and had already talked it over with Gale, who believed that a current could not be produced strong enough to mark characters on paper at a hundred miles. The problem did not affect Morse’s upcoming demonstration before Congress. But against the distant prospect of developing a system that might have to reach hundreds and thousands of miles, he had invented a new device. “It matters not how delicate the movement may be,” his thinking went, “if I can obtain it at all, it is all I want.” However weakened at, say, twenty miles, the current might at least be strong enough to close and open another circuit, sending the signal on with a fresh impulse for another twenty miles. The signal could be repeated from one twenty-mile circuit to another for the required distance—even around the globe.
Alfred Vail (New York University Archives)
This so-called relay was an elegantly simple device that used an electromagnet to close and open an independent circuit having its own battery. It marked a huge, essential advance in the utility of Morse’s telegraph, and had many other possible applications. Given his little knowledge of mechanics and electrical science, the relay seems miraculously ingenious. One historian of technology has called it “a creative engineering achievement of the first order.”
Morse’s 1837 relay plan (Samuel I. Prime, The Life of Samuel F. B. Morse, LL.D. [1875])
Morse’s description of his relay convinced Vail. He agreed to take on the job of refining Morse’s machinery, in exchange for a share of the profits. The partnership had other mutual benefits. Seeking his place in the world, Vail had thought of entering the Episcopal ministry or opening a religious bookstore—or working at the Philadelphia mint. In the telegraph he believed he had found his future. “I disided [sic] in my own mind,” he said, “to sink or swim with it.” On his side, Morse valued not only Vail’s mechanical skill but also his financial assistance, for Vail offered to ask his father and brother to pay for building the apparatus to be shown to Congress. The offer came as a deliverance. A hike in rent at the University had forced Morse to give up four rooms that he rented to his pupils. Even more than usually strapped for funds, he accepted money from Sidney and Richard to support his work on the telegraph. And the year, 1837, had brought one of the worst economic depressions of the nineteenth century, bankrupting hundreds of businesses and throwing thousands of people out of work.
Morse and Vail signed formal articles of agreement. By its terms, Vail would construct a perfected telegraph for exhibition before Congress “at his own proper costs and expense”—the money coming, in reality, from his family. He/they would also defray all incidental expenses, including the costs of obtaining a patent. In exchange, Morse granted Vail a one-fourth financial interest in the apparatus in the United States, and one-half interest in the foreign rights—provided Vail also paid the costs of taking out patents abroad.
Beyond his know-how and family resources, Vail was a young man to Morse’s taste—artistic,