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Two world-changing inventions came out of this Morristown property. Stephen Vail’s ironworks produced the engine for the SS Savannah, the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean. And it was in a building on these grounds that Alfred Vail, working with Samuel Morse, successfully demonstrated the telegraph for the first time in 1838. The site includes the original factory building where that demonstration happened, the Vail family mansion, and several outbuildings. It’s a National Historic Landmark that doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves. New Jersey was quietly inventing the modern world, and Speedwell is the evidence.
