Henry Leavitt Ellsworth was a Yale-educated attorney who became the first Commissioner of the U.S. Patent Office, where he encouraged innovation by inventors Samuel F.B. Morse and Samuel Colt. Ellsworth also served as the second president of the Aetna Insurance Company, and was a major donor to Yale College, a commissioner to Indian tribes on the western frontier, and the founder of what became the United States Department of Agriculture.
Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, first Commissioner of the U.S. Patent Office, founder, United States Department of Agriculture
Oliver Ellsworth Homestead, Windsor, Connecticut, birthplace of Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, National Historic Landmark
Broadside advertising sale by Ellsworth of parcels of his western lands, Lafayette, Indiana, 1847
The Morse Telegraph, one of many inventions championed by Henry Leavitt Ellsworth
Samuel Finley Breese Morse was an American inventor and painter. After having established his reputation as a portrait painter, in his middle age Morse contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph system based on European telegraphs. He was a co-developer of Morse code in 1837 and helped to develop the commercial use of telegraphy.
Morse in 1866
Birthplace of Morse, Charlestown, Massachusetts, c. 1898 photo
Self-portrait of Morse in 1812 (National Portrait Gallery)
Jonas Platt, New York politician, by Morse. Oil on canvas, 1828, Brooklyn Museum.