7 Samuel F.B. Morse 7

Hudson River near Poughkeepsie, New York, where, early

in the 1850s, he built an Italian villa-style mansion. He

spent his summers there with his large family of children

and grandchildren, returning each winter season to his

brownstone home in New York City.

In his old age, Morse, a patriarch with a flowing beard,

became a philanthropist. He gave generously to Vassar

College, of which he was a founder and trustee; to his alma

mater, Yale College; and to churches, theological seminaries,

Bible societies, mission societies, and temperance societies,

as well as to poor artists.

Even during Morse’s own lifetime, the world was

much changed by the telegraph. After his death in 1872,

his fame as the inventor of the telegraph was obscured by

the invention of the telephone, radio, and television, while

his reputation as an artist has grown. At one time he did

not wish to be remembered as a portrait painter, but his

powerful and sensitive portraits, among them those of

Lafayette, the American writer William Cullen Bryant,

and other prominent men, have been exhibited through-

out the United States. His 1837 telegraph instrument is

preserved by the Smithsonian Institution’s National

Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., while

his estate, Locust Grove, is now designated a historic

landmark.

Charles Babbage

(b. Dec. 26, 1791, London, Eng.—d. Oct. 18, 1871, London)

C

harles Babbage, an English mathematician and inven-

tor, is credited with having conceived the first

automatic digital computer.

In 1812 Babbage helped found the Analytical Society,

whose object was to introduce developments from the

European continent into English mathematics. In 1816