Morse with Telegraph Telegram inaugurating commerical service was sent May 24, 1844 by Professor Samuel Finley Breese Morse from the United States Supreme Court room in the capitol at Washington, D. C., to Alfred Vail at the Mount Claire station of the Balimore & Ohio Railroad Company of Balimore, Maryland, who retransmitted it to Morse. The message "What hath God wrought" was selected from the 23rd verse of the 23rd chapter of numbers by Annie Ellsworth, daughter of the Commissioner of Patents