Happily, it was decided
to abandon the subterranean line, and erect the conductor on poles above
the ground. A start was made from the Capitol, Washington, on April 1,
1844, and the line was carried to the Mount Clare Depot, Baltimore, on
May 23, 1843. Next morning Miss Ellsworth fulfilled her promise by
inditing the first message. She chose the words, 'What hath God
wrought?' and they were transmitted by Morse from the Capitol at
8.45 a.m., and received at Mount Clare by Alfred Vail.
This was the first message of a public character sent by the electric
telegraph in the Western World, and it is preserved by the Connecticut
Historical Society. The dots and dashes representing the words were not
drawn with pen and ink, but embossed on the paper with a metal stylus.
The machine itself was kept in the National Museum at Washington, and on
removing it, in 1871, to exhibit it at the Morse Memorial Celebration at
New York, a member of the Vail family discovered a folded paper attached
to its base. A corner of the writing was torn away before its importance
was recognised; but it proved to be a signed statement by Alfred Vail,
to the effect that the method of embossing was invented by him in the
sixth storey of the NEW YORK OBSERVER office during 1844, prior to the
erection of the Washington to Baltimore line, without any hint from
Morse.
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