(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
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Alfred Vail was born at Morristown, New Jersey on September 25, 1807. He was the son of Stephen and Bethiah (Young) Vail.
His father was the owner and operator of the Speedwell Iron Works. The records of the Presbyterian Church in Morristown show that he was given a middle name, Lewis, which he apparently never used.
Upon completing a common-school education in his native town, Vail entered his father's establishment.
After taking some college preparatory work entered the University of the City of New York in 1832, graduating in 1836.
Possessed of a considerable amount of native mechanical skill, Vail became an expert mechanician and by the time he was twenty he had complete charge of the machine shop, where he continued for a number of years. About 1830 he decided to become a Presbyterian minister.
Although his health was poor, he immediately began his theological studies. On September 2, 1837, however, at the University, he saw Prof. Samuel F. B. Morse give one of his first exhibitions of the telegraph. Vail at once perceived the significance of Morse's invention and expressed a desire to become associated with him in perfecting and exploiting it.
Morse, being greatly in need of mechanical as well as financial assistance, grasped this unexpected opportunity, and on September 23, 1837, a contract was drawn up between Vail and Morse, Vail binding himself to construct a complete set of instruments and to secure both United States and foreign patents at his own expense, while in return he received a fourth interest in the American rights and a half interest in patents which might be secured abroad.
He had no money of his own but quickly induced his father to finance the undertaking, and thereupon Vail, Morse, and a third associate, Leonard D. Gale, went to work on the telegraph in the shops of the Speedwell Iron Works.
On January 6, 1838, a successful demonstration was made of the improved electric telegraph through three miles of wire stretched around one of the shops. Vail's father furnished the message for this occasion: "A patient waiter is no loser. " Within the month Vail and Morse held their first public exhibition of the telegraph in New York City, when "Attention, the Universe, by kingdoms right wheel, " was the terse message successfully transmitted.
The mechanical perfection of practically all the instruments used was the result of Vail's skill, and he worked enthusiastically with Morse in demonstrating the telegraph before the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, on February 8, 1838, and before members of Congress on February 21, of that year. The partners felt that the telegraph ought to be owned by the government and hoped that as a result of this latter demonstration Congress would purchase the invention.
This hope was disappointed, but the demonstration in Washington aroused the interest of one congressman, Francis O. J. Smith, who within a month became a financial partner and received a four-sixteenths interest in the invention, brought about by the reduction of Vail's interest from four to two sixteenths.
The new capital thus acquired enabled Morse to proceed to Europe to secure his foreign patents, and with his departure Vail's interest in the telegraph waned. He did very little work on it in 1838, and in 1839, he went to Philadelphia to represent his father's interests. Here he remained until 1843; but when in March of that year, Congress passed the act providing for an experimental telegraph line between Washington and Baltimore, Vail became Morse's chief assistant and received the test message "What hath God wrought!" at Baltimore on May 24, 1844.
He remained with Morse for the next four years, publishing in 1845, The American Electro Magnetic Telegraph, but again lost interest in the work, and in 1848 resigned his position as superintendent at Philadelphia.
Returning to Morristown, he lived there in retirement until his death, giving much of his time in later years to compiling material for a genealogy of the Vail family. Vail profited little from the telegraph, for he did not improve the opportunities it afforded, failing to take up the manufacture of telegraph instruments, and he died poor and unhappy.
He died in Morristown, in his fifty-second year.
Alfred Vail was a telegraph pioneer. A US Army base has been named in his honor. Camp Vail in Eatontown, New Jersey, later renamed Fort Monmouth, part of Camp Vail was an Army housing complex. After World War II, the families of servicemen and civilian Army employees negotiated with the Army to purchase the development, which was later named Alfred Vail Mutual Association, and due to the work of the Town Clerk the residents retained the rights to the original Charter of Shrewsbury Township Est. 1693. This housing development exists to this day under that name. An elementary school near the Speedwell Works, in Morristown, New Jersey, is named "Alfred Vail. "
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
Vail was twice married. His first wife, July 23, 1839, to Jane Elizabeth Cummings, who died in 1852. His second marriage was on December 17, 1855, to Amanda O. Eno, who with three sons by his first marriage survived him.
28 June 1780 - 12 June 1864 Was a founding partner of the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia and the creator of the Speedwell Ironworks in Morristown, New Jersey.
9 August 1778 - 17 September 1847
Died on 10 June 1808.
21 July 1809 - 23 May 1875
July 1817 - 10 June 1852
6 April 1852 - 5 October 1931
9 January 1843 - 2 February 1918
July 16, 1845 – April 16, 1920 Was president of American Telephone & Telegraph between 1885 and 1889, and again from 1907 to 1919.
