Portrait of the American inventor and painter Samuel Morse (1791-1872). Morse graduated at the University of Yale in 1810 and in 1811 he visited England to study painting, returning in 1815 to earn his living as a portrait painter. In 1832, after having been helped by the American physicist J. Henry, he had the idea of a design for the electric telegraph. In 1844 the first telegragh line, about 65km long, was completed linking Washington to Baltimore. The first message sent by Morse was insWhat hath God wroughtins; it was sent in a code of dots and dashes, the Morse code, which he had deviced in 1838. Morse never acknowledged the help received by J. Henry.