Tags: Engineer.
Alfred Lewis Vail (September 25 1807 – January 18 1859) was an American machinist and inventor. Vail was central with Samuel F. B. Morse in developing and commercializing the telegraph between 1837 and 1844. Vail and Morse were the first two telegraph operators on Morse’s first experimental line between Washington DC and Baltimore and Vail took charge of building and managing several early telegraph lines between 1845 and 1848.