Vail, Alfred Lewis

SUBJECT AREA: Telecommunications

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b. 25 September 1807 Morristown, New Jersey, USA

d. 18 January 1859 Morristown, New Jersey, USA

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American telegraph pioneer and associate of Samuel Morse; widely credited with the invention of "Morse" code.

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After leaving school, Vail was initially employed at his father's ironworks in Morristown, but he then decided to train for the Presbyterian ministry, graduating from New York City University in 1836. Unfortunately, he was then obliged to abandon his chosen career because of ill health. He accidentally met Samuel Morse not long afterwards, and he became interested in the latter's telegraph experiments; in return for a share of the rights, he agreed to construct apparatus and finance the filing of US and foreign patents. Working in Morristown with Morse and Leonard Gale, and with financial backing from his father, Vail constructed around his father's plant a telegraph with 3 miles (4.8 km) of wire. It is also possible that he, rather than Morse, was largely responsible for devising the so-called Morse code, a series of dot and dash codes representing the letters of the alphabet, and in which the simplest codes were chosen for those letters found to be most numerous in a case of printer's type. This system was first demonstrated on 6 January 1838 and there were subsequent public demonstrations in New York and Philadelphia. Eventually Congress authorized an above-ground line between Washington and Baltimore, and on 24 May 1844 the epoch-making message "What hath God wrought?" was transmitted.

Vail remained with Morse for a further four years, but he gradually lost interest in telegraphy and resigned, receiving no credit for his important contribution.

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Bibliography

The Magnetic Telegraph.

Further Reading

1845, American Electrotelegraph 135.

J.J.Fahie, 1884, A History of the Electric Telegraph to the Year 1837, London: E\&F Spon.

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