Samuel Finley Breese Morse

Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, on 27 April 1791. He was the first son of Jedidiah Morse, a clergyman, and Elizabeth Breese, of New Jersey.

Morse was an American painter and inventor. After having established his reputation as a portrait painter, in his middle age Morse contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph system based on European telegraphs. He was a co-developer of the Morse code, and helped to develop the commercial use of telegraphy.

Morse married Lucretia Pickering Walker on 29 September 1818, in Concord, New Hampshire. She died on 7 February 1825, shortly after the birth of their third child (Susan b. 1819, Charles b. 1823, James b. 1825). He married his second wife, Sarah Elizabeth Griswold on 10 August 1848 in Utica, New York and had four children (Samuel b. 1849, Cornelia b. 1851, William b. 1853, Edward b. 1857).

Morse died on in New York City, New York on 2 April 1872.