Was Samuel Morse Jewish?

Recently I came across the claim that Samuel Morse – the inventor of Morse code – was in fact jewish.

For example, ‘MNews’ claims that:

‘Samuel Finley Breese Morse – Telegraph and Morse code

Samuel Morse is an American artist and inventor. In 1837, he created the world's first electromagnetic telegraph device. And in 1838, he invented a telegraph code bearing his name: Morse code.’ (1)

As you might suspect this is complete and utter nonsense since Samuel Morse was the son of Pastor Jedidiah Morse and his wife Elizabeth Ann Finley Morse. His father was a Calvinist pastor of strong Puritan sympathies as well as a geographer of note and Morse could trace his ancestry back to Anthony Morse from Marlborough, England who emigrated to America in 1635. (2)

Clearly Samuel Morse was not jewish but also rather more notably was a radical anti-Catholic American nationalist. (3)

So where did this somewhat ludicrous claim of jewishness come from?

Well, an amateur jewish historian from the United States who gives his name as Joels W may have figured it out quite by accident.

On his blog he reproduces an odd note from a Yiddish book of rabbinical responsa from Rabbi Yosef Zechariah Stern of Siauliai, Lithuania who states in this obscure 1836 book that (Joels W’s translation):

‘The invention of the Telegraph which was renewed in our generation by the ingenuity of a Jew from America, Shmuel the son of Yedidiah Morse, who in 1836, his hands readied the first machine.’ (4)

Why on earth Rabbi Stern thought Samuel Morse was actually Shmuel Morse I don’t entirely know other than he assumed that the Morse family’s proclivity for Old Testament names meant that he was of jewish or did Rabbi Stern get Samuel Morse confused for the failed businessman and writer Salmi Morse (who was in fact jewish). (5)

Or was it just then a current rumour within the jewish community that Rabbi Stern was simply repeating and assumed was the truth?

We’ll probably never know, but never-the-less this is another interesting case – along with people like Christopher Columbus (6) and Miguel de Cervantes – (7) of jews claiming famous non-jews as jews.

Although in this case I don’t think it was intentional on Rabbi Stern’s part but rather just a case of ‘lost in translation’.

References

(1) https://mnews.world/en/news/the-great-jews-and-their-inventions

(2) https://web.archive.org/web/20061212073521/http://www.morsehistoricsite.org/history/morse.html; https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Heroes_of_the_Telegraph/Chapter_3

(3) See Samuel Morse, 1835, ‘Conspiracy Against the Liberties of the United States’, 1st Edition, Leavitt, Lord & Co.: New York, especially p. 35

(4) https://ha-historion.blogspot.com/2011/10/samuel-morse-inventor-of-morse-code.html

(5) https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Morse%27s_Passion

(6) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/was-christopher-columbus-jewish

(7) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/was-miguel-de-cervantes-jewish