Samuel Morse
In addition to the telegraph, Morse invented a marble-cutting machine that could carve three-dimensional sculptures in marble or stone. He could not patent it, however, because of an existing 1820 Thomas Blanchard design.
Heliograph
The German professor Carl Friedrich Gauss of the University of Göttingen developed and used a predecessor of the heliograph (the heliotrope) in 1821. His device directed a controlled beam of sunlight to a distant station to be used as a marker for geodetic survey work, and was suggested as a means of telegraphic communications. This is the first reliably documented heliographic device, despite much speculation about possible ancient incidents of sun-flash signalling, and the documented existence of other forms of ancient optical telegraphy.