Morse's telegraph key which sent the first US telegraph message on May 24, 1844, over an experimental line from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, the message said: "What hath God wrought?" Taken from the Bible, Numbers 23:23, and recorded on a paper tape, the phrase had been suggested to Morse by Annie Ellsworth. Alfred Vail made this key, believed to be from the first Baltimore-Washington telegraph line, as an improvement on Samuel Morse's original transmitter. Vail helped Morse develop a practical system for sending and receiving coded electrical signals over a wire. Samuel Finley Breese Morse (1791-1872) was an American painter and inventor who co-developed the Morse code and helped to develop the commercial use of telegraphy. The original Morse telegraph, submitted with his patent application, is part of the collections of the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution. In time the Morse code, which he developed, would become the primary language of telegraphy in the world. It is still the standard for rhythmic transmission of data.