SAMUEL F. B. MORSE(1791 - 1872) American inventor credited with the invention of the telegraph, as well as a signaling alphabet known as the Morse Code. A.L.S. "Saml. F. B. Morse" 1p. 8vo., Poughkeepsie, June 19, 1853, to Samuel Colgate, in part: "...Will you have the kindness to say to Mr. Haviland he may put one dozen of Soup Plates to correspond with the dinner plates in the same hogshead with the rest of the crockery...". Only days after this letter, on June 26, 1855, Congressman Milton S. Latham made a proposition to Morse on behalf of the State of California to purchase for a sizeable sum the Morse patent rights for telegraph lines in California. Soon flush with money earned from his invention, Morse, formerly a poor artist, bought an estate called Locust Grove on the bluff of Poughkeepsie, New York. After Morse's death, this house became a museum, and among its treasured artifacts is the rare china mentioned in this letter. Folds, light staining to bottom margin, very good.