Historic Tales: The Romance of Reality. Vol. 01 (of 15), American (1)Morris, Charles
History
Historic Tales: The Romance of Reality. Vol. 01 (of 15), American (1)
Morris, Charles
United States -- History
Mrs. Blennerhasset became a charge on the charity of her
friends. After several years she returned to the United
States, where she sought to obtain remuneration from
Congress for her destroyed property. She would probably have
succeeded but for her sudden death. She was buried at the
expense of a society of Irish ladies in the city of New
York. And thus ended the career of two of the victims of
Aaron Burr. They had listened to the siren voice of the
tempter, and ruin and despair were their rewards.
HOW THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH WAS INVENTED.
The year 1832 is only sixty years ago in time, yet since
then there has been a striking development of conveniences,
rapidity of travel, and arrangements for the diffusion of
intelligence. People then still travelled in great part by
aid of horses, the railroad having just begun its marvellous
career. News, which now fly over continents and under oceans
at lightning speed, then jogged on at stage-coach rates of
progress, creeping where they now fly. On the ocean, steam
was beginning to battle with wind and wave, but the ocean
racer was yet a far-off dream, and mariners still put their
trust in sails much more than in the new-born contrivances
which were preparing to revolutionize travel. But the wand
of the enchanter had been waved; steam had come, and with it
the new era of progress had dawned. And another great agent
in the development of civilization was about to come.
Electricity, which during all previous time had laughed at
bonds, was soon to become man's slave, and to be made his
purveyor of news. It is the story of this chaining of the
lightning, and forcing it to become the swift conveyer of
man's sayings and doings, that we have here to tell.
In the far remote period named--if we measure time by
deeds, not by years--a packet-ship, the Sully, was making
its deliberate way across the Atlantic from Havre to New
York. Its passenger list was not large,--the ocean had not
yet become a busy highway of the continents,--but among them
were some persons in whom we are interested. One of these
was a Boston doctor, Charles T. Jackson by name. A second
was a New York artist, named Samuel F.B. Morse. The
last-named gentleman had been a student at Yale, where he
became greatly interested in chemistry and some other
sciences. He had studied the art of painting under Benjamin
West in London, had practised it in New York, had long been
president of the National Academy of the Arts of Design; and
was now on his way home after a second period of residence
in Europe as a student of art.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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