But he, like Bell, came to his task with a most surprising fitness.

He was a member of the historic Vail family of Morristown, New Jersey, which had operated the Speedwell Iron Works for four or five generations.

His grand-uncle Stephen had built the engines for the Savannah, the first American steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean; and his cousin Alfred was the friend and co-worker of Morse, the inventor of the telegraph.

Morse had lived for several years at the Vail homestead in Morristown; and it was here that he erected his first telegraph line, a three-mile circle around the Iron Works, in 1838.

He and Alfred Vail experimented side by side in the making of the telegraph, and Vail eventually received a fortune for his share of the Morse patent.
Thus it happened that young Theodore Vail learned the dramatic story of Morse at his mother's knee.