overall: 12 in x 36 in x 12 in; 30.48 cm x 91.44 cm x 30.48 cm
Object Name:
Telegraph Instrument
Date made:
ca 1885
Description (Brief):
A model of Samuel Morse's telegraph instrument, made about forty years after the Baltimore-Washington transmission. Mahogany frame, brass components, key, relay, register, and extra disks for register.
Original inscription removed by curator George Maynard in 1897 reads: "Model of the original Morse Telegraph Instrument in the Patent Office at Washington, said instrument being that by which the first Telegraphic message was sent 'What hath God wrought'."
The model was made according to drawings and memories of remaining witnesses of the May 1844 transmission. A 23 November 1896 letter from Charles Selden, Superintendent of Telegraph, B&O Railroad states in part: "The models ... were gotten up under the supervision of Major J. G. Pangborn to be shown at, I think, the first New Orleans Exposition sometime between 1884 and 1886, .... The model of the Morse telegraph instrument Major Pangborn got from the Telegraph Company. ... They are probably as near correct as could be gotten under the circumstances."
Pieces of the original Morse apparatus are cataloged as EM.251265.
