Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 10.djvu/249

 VAIL

VAIL

VAIL, Alfred, inventor, was born in Morris- town. N.J., Sept. 25, 1807 : son of Judge Stephen (1780-1864) and Bertlia (Young) Vail. He was graduated from the University of the City of New York, 1836, but was obliged by ill health to abandon the idea of entering the Presbyterian ministry. On Sept. 2, 1837, he attended the ex- hibition of the telegraph apparatus of Professor S. F. B. Morse at the University, his interest in the invention resulting in an agreement with Professor Morse bj^ which Vail was to receive a one-fourth interest in the invention in the United States, on condition that he construct at his own expense and exhibit before a congressional com- mittee, one of the instruments and procure the necessary United States patents. Vail persuaded his father to advance the required funds, and be- gan the construction of the new instrument in a locked room of one of his father s shops at Speed-

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well. N.J.. with the aid of his assistant, William Baxter. The first alteration which Vail made in the Morse machine was the substitution of a fountain-pen for the recording pencil ; this, how- ever, not proving successful, he invented the armature lever having a vertical motion, so that it could be brought down upon the record strip instead of being carried across it. He also made the entirely new telegraphic alphabet of dots, dashes and spaces, still erroneously called the Morse code. On Jan. 6, 1838, a successful dem- onstration of the machine was made at Speed- well over three miles of wire, " A patient waiter is no loser," being the message sent by Judge Vail and correctlj' recorded. Exhibitions followed at Columbia college, New York city, and Franklin Institute, Philadelphia. Pa. On Feb. 23, 1843, congress appropriated ^30,000 for an ex- perimental line from Washington, D.C., to Balti- more, Md., and on May 23, 1844, the famous mes- sage, " What hath God wrought ! " was sent by Morse from Washington and received by Vail at Baltimore, the instrument by which the message was taken at the latter city being now in posses-

sion of the National Museum, Washington, D.C. Among other impoi'tant improvements which Vail devised, were the axial magnet, with work- ing drawings of ampere meter, in which its prin- ciple was to be utilized, and an original vibrating circuit breaker. Although the original concep- tion of the electro-magnetic telegraph belonged to Morse, and although he actually constructed a working recording apparatus, the first available Morse machine was the work of Vail, and the modern telegraph is mainly that of Vail and of Professor Joseph Henry (q.v.). Alfred Vail was married, first, July 23, 1839, to Jane Elizabeth, daughter of James Cummings of New York city, and granddaughter of John Nugent, an English officer stationed in the West Indies ; she died, June 10, 1853, and he was man-ied secondly, Dec. 17, 1855, to Amanda O., daughter of Jonathan Eno and granddaughter of General Eno, who participated in the war of the Revolution. They had three sons : Stephen, James Cummings and George Rochester. For thirty years Mrs. Vail, who died in Hartford, Conn., in 1894, had en- deavored to secure for her husband proper credit for his share in the invention of the magnetic electric telegraph, and at the Chicago exposition in 1893, the name of Alfred Vail was displayed in letters of light among the names of eminent electricians. He received the honorary degree of A.M. from the University of the City of New Y'ork in 1848, and is the author of : American Electro-Magnetic Telegraph (1845). He died in Morristown, N.J., Jan. 19, 1859.

VAIL, Thomas Hubbard, first bishop of Kan- sas and 73d in succession in the American episco- pate, was born in Richmond, Va., Oct. 21, 1812. He was graduated from Washington (Trinity) college, A.B., 1831, A.M., 1834, and from the General Theological seminary. New York city, 1835. He was admitted to the diaconate, June, 1835 ; was assistant at St. James's church, Phila- delphia, Pa., and at St. Paul's, Boston, Mass., ; was advanced to the priesthood in Grace church, Boston, by Bishop Griswold, Jan. 6, 1837 ; was rector of Christ Church, Cambridge, Mass., 1837- 39; St. John's, Essex, Conn., 1839-44; Chri.st church, Westerly, R.I., 1844-57 ; St. John's, Taun- ton, Mass., 1857-63, and Trinity, Muscatine, Iowa, 1863-64. He was elected first bishop of Kansas and was consecrated, Dec. 15, 1864. He received the honorary degree of D.D. from Brown in 1858 and that of LL.D. from the University of Kansas in 1875. He edited the Rev. A. F. Lyte's " Buds of Spring," poems, with a memoir of the author and with additional original poems (1838), and is the author of : Plan and Outline, ivith Selection of Books, of a Public Library in Rhode Island