“Music! the electric telegraph of the heart, having its termination in Heaven.” With these poetic words, Augusta Browne began an 1849 essay in the Message Bird, a fortnightly New York journal of the arts. I find it one of her most engaging aphorisms, comparing the power of music to convey love, grief, or joy, to the near-instant function of Samuel Morse’s telegraph to transport words and messages.
Augusta’s admiration and enthusiasm for the new technological marvel suggests a progressive young adult of her era. But there was more to it than just the innovation in communication. A chain of connections between Morse, the telegraph, and Augusta Browne emerges from her life and family story like a series of electric bulbs lighting up.