Jedidiah Morse (August 23, 1761 – June 9, 1826) was a notable geographer whose textbooks became a staple for students in the United States. He was the father of Samuel F. B. Morse, the man who developed Morse code.
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Born to a New England family in Boston, Morse did his undergraduate work and earned a divinity degree at Yale University (M.A. 1786).
He became a pastor in Charlestown, Massachusetts (across Boston harbor), where he served for about thirty years. Among his friends and numerous correspondents were Noah Webster, Benjamin Silliman and Jeremy Belknap.
Morse strongly influenced the educational system of the United States. While teaching at a school for young women, he saw the need for a geography textbook oriented to the forming nation. The result was skimpy and derivative, Geography Made Easy (1784). He followed that with American Geography (1789), which was widely cited and copied. New editions of his school textbooks and the more weighty works often came out annually, earning him the informal title, "father of American geography." His postponed gazetteer for his work of 1784 was bested by Joseph Scott's Gazetteer of the United States in 1795. With the aid of Noah Webster and Rev. Samuel Austin, Morse published his gazetteer as Universal Geography of the United States (1797).
Morse also made significant contributions to Dobson's Encyclopædia, the first encyclopedia published in the United States after the Revolution. In addition to writing authoritatively on geography, he rebutted certain racist views published in the Encyclopædia Britannica concerning the Native American peoples, e.g., that their women were "slavish" and that their skins and skulls were thicker than those of other humans. He published the Panoplist and Missionary Magazine.[1]
Morse is also known for his part in the Illuminati conspiracy theory in New England 1798-99. Beginning May 9, 1798, Morse delivered three sermons supporting John Robison's book Proofs of Conspiracy. Morse was a strong Federalist and shared fears that the anti-Federalists were influenced by alleged French Illuminati. According to a conspiracy theory, they were responsible for the French Revolution and Americans feared its excesses. Official sources state that Morse and Robisons claims have been discredited. When presented with the conspiracy theory, President George Washington reportedly said, "It is not my intention to doubt that the doctrine of the Illuminati and the principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more satisfied of this fact than I am.
The idea that I meant to convey, was, that I did not believe that the Lodges of Free Masons in this Country had, as Societies, endeavoured to propagate the diabolical tenets of the first, or pernicious principles of the latter (if they are susceptible of separation). That Individuals of them may have done it, or that the founder, or instrument employed to found, the Democratic Societies in the United States, may have had these objects; and actually had a separation of the People from their Government in view, is too evident to be questioned."
Morse married Elizabeth Ann Finley Breese after starting as pastor. He and his wife had a family of several children, including their first child Samuel F. B. Morse, the future painter and developer of Morse code, a system of shorthand communication to be used by telegraph operators.
The senior Morse died in 1826 and was buried at the Grove Street Cemetery.
"To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoys... Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government, and all blessings which flow from them, must fall with them."
"Let us guard against the insidious encroachments of innovation, that evil and beguiling spirit which is now stalking to and fro through the earth seeking whom he may destroy."[2]