Invention Timeline - Alfred Vail, American Inventor; Made the Telegraph Practicable
b. September 25, 1807 and d. January 18, 1859
American inventor. He made the telegraph practicable. He produced the first available Morse machine and invented the first combination of the horizontal lever motion to actuate a pen, pencil or stylus, and then applied Morse’s telegraphic alphabet of dots, spaces and dashes, but Mr. Vail claims to have first applied it alphabetically. In 1844 he devised the lever and grooved roller which embossed on paper the characters, and the finger-key. On May 24, 1844, he received at Mount Claire Depot the first message from Washington. Prior to 1837 Morse and Joseph Henry worked alone; from 1837-’44 Morse, Henry and Vail worked together, and the parts that Morse contributed were eliminated.
Thought awakens: now before us
Lies the world in one embrace;
Quickly nation after nation
The electric wires enlace;
Land to land is nearer drawing,
City unto city bound;
Space becomes annihilated,
Thought begirts the world around;
Thought hath scaled the lofty mountains,
Valley unto valley chained;
Now it darts through ocean’s caverns;-
Thought triumphant is proclaimed.
—Thought and the Telegraph: G. A. Hamilton
