Cyrus West Field (November 30, 1819 – July 12, 1892) was an American businessman and financier who, along with other entrepreneurs, created the Atlantic Telegraph Company and laid the first telegraph cable across the Atlantic Ocean in 1858.
Field was born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts to Rev. David Dudley Field, a Congregational clergyman, and Submit Dickinson Field, daughter of Revolutionary War Captain Noah Dickinson from Somers, Connecticut. He was the eighth of ten children. His brother Stephen would become the 38th United States Supreme Court Justice.
When he was 15 years old, Cyrus went to New York City, where he was hired as an errand boy in the A.T. Stewart & Co., a dry goods merchant firm. As an apprentice he earned fifty dollars his first year as a storeroom clerk and double the following year. By 1838 he returned to Stockbridge and accepted an offer from his brother Matthew to become his assistant in a paper manufacturing venture, the Columbia Mill, in Lee, Massachusetts.
1840 was a busy year for Cyrus. He went into business by himself, manufacturing paper in Westfield, Massachusetts then also became a junior partner in the Elisha Root & Co., a wholesale paper firm based in New York with responsibilities to oversee clients and conduct sales away from New York. Then on December 2nd, two days after he turned twenty one he married Mary Bryan Stone.
After six months the E. Root & Co. failed leaving large debts. Field negotiated with creditors, dissolved the old firm, and started a new partnership with his brother-in-law, Joseph F. Stone, registered as Cyrus W. Field & Co. The company had been at 85 Maiden Lane just two blocks from Fulton Street. In 1842 he would move into the same building as the Elys, George Cook, Lemuel Smith and Thomas Latham when Caleb Bartlett moved out. Two years later he moved to 9 Burling Slip (bet. Pearl & Water Streets) along with John D. Abbot who had his warehouse, at 9 Burling Slip.
He stayed in business and was furnishing supplies for the Northeast mills, and buying the finished product wholesale. Through his hard work and long hours, the young paper merchant was able to repay the settled debts and succeed in business by servicing the burgeoning penny press and the need for stocks and bonds, becoming eventually one of the richest men in New York. In March, 1853, he repaid all previously cancelled debt due to the insolvency of E. Root & Co. in full amount with interest, being under no legal obligation to do so.
Business earnings permitted Field to partially retire in 1853 with a fortune of $250,000 ($10 million today) and build a home in Gramercy Park. That same year Field financed an expedition to South America with his artist friend Frederic Edwin Church, during which they explored present-day Ecuador, Colombia, and Panama. They followed the route taken by Alexander von Humboldt over 50 years earlier. Church's sketches of the landscapes and volcanoes on this trip, and on a subsequent trip in 1857 with artist Louis Rémy Mignot, inspired some of his most famous paintings upon his return to New York.
Business earnings permitted Field to partially retire in 1853 with a fortune of $250,000 ($10 million today) and build a home in Gramercy Park. That same year Field financed an expedition to South America with his artist friend Frederic Edwin Church, during which they explored present-day Ecuador, Colombia, and Panama. They followed the route taken by Alexander von Humboldt over 50 years earlier. Church's sketches of the landscapes and volcanoes on this trip, and on a subsequent trip in 1857 with artist Louis Rémy Mignot, inspired some of his most famous paintings upon his return to New York.
Frederic Edwin Church painting "View of Cotopaxi"
Field turned his attention to telegraphy after he was contacted in January 1854 by Frederic Newton Gisborne, a British engineer, who aimed to establish a telegraph connection between St. John's, Newfoundland and New York City, started the work, but failed due to the lack of capital. Later that year he, with Samuel F.B. Morse and others, joined the so-called Cable Cabinet. Through the entrepreneurs, investors and engineers the became instrumental in laying a 400-mile telegraph line connecting St. John's, Newfoundland with Nova Scotia, coupling with telegraph lines from the U.S. American investors took over Gisborne's venture and formed a new company called the New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company (N.Y.N.L.T.C.) after Field convinced the Cable Cabinet to extend the line from Newfoundland to Ireland .
The next year the same investors formed the Atlantic Telegraph Company and began buying up other companies, rationalizing them into a consolidated system that ran from Maine to the Gulf Coast; the system was second only to Western Union's
In 1857, after securing financing in England and backing from the American and British governments, the Atlantic Telegraph Company began laying the first transatlantic telegraph cable, utilizing a shallow submarine plateau that ran between Ireland and Newfoundland. The cable was officially opened on August 16, 1858, when Queen Victoria sent President James Buchanan a message in Morse code. Although the jubilation at the feat was widespread, the cable itself was short-lived: it broke down three weeks afterward, and was not reconnected until 1866.
In 1857, after securing financing in England and backing from the American and British governments, the Atlantic Telegraph Company began laying the first transatlantic telegraph cable, utilizing a shallow submarine plateau that ran between Ireland and Newfoundland. The cable was officially opened on August 16, 1858, when Queen Victoria sent President James Buchanan a message in Morse code. Although the jubilation at the feat was widespread, the cable itself was short-lived: it broke down three weeks afterward, and was not reconnected until 1866.
During the Panic of 1857, Field's paper business was suspended, and Peter Cooper, his neighbor in Gramercy Park, was the only one that kept him from going under. (Shown on the left)
Peter Cooper (February 12, 1791 – April 4, 1883) was an American industrialist, inventor, philanthropist, and politician. He designed and built the first American steam locomotive, the Tom Thumb, founded the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, served as its first president, and stood for election as the Greenback Party's candidate in the 1876 presidential election.
Field's activities brought him into contact with a number of prominent persons on both sides of the Atlantic – including Lord Clarendon and William Ewart Gladstone, the British Finance Minister at the time. Field's communications with Gladstone would become important in the middle of the American Civil War, when three letters he received from Gladstone between November 27, 1862 and December 9, 1862 caused a furor, because Gladstone appeared to express support of the secessionist southern states in forming the Confederate States of America.
In 1866, Field laid a new, more durable trans-Atlantic cable using the SS Great Eastern, at the time, the largest ocean-going ship in the world. His new cable provided almost instant communication across the Atlantic. On his return to Newfoundland, he grappled the cable he had attempted to lay the previous year and made it into a backup wire to the main cable.
In 1866, Field laid a new, more durable trans-Atlantic cable using the SS Great Eastern, at the time, the largest ocean-going ship in the world. His new cable provided almost instant communication across the Atlantic. On his return to Newfoundland, he grappled the cable he had attempted to lay the previous year and made it into a backup wire to the main cable.
The SS Great Eastern
In 1867, Field received a gold medal from the U.S. Congress and the grand prize at the International Exposition in Paris for his work on the transatlantic cable.
In the 1870s–80s, Field entered into the transportation business. He served as president of the New York Elevated Railroad Company in 1877–1880 and collaborated with Jay Gould on developing the Wabash Railroad. He also owned the Mail and Express, a New York newspaper. Bad investments deprived Field of his fortune. He lived modestly during the last five years of his life in his native Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and died in 1892 at the age of 72. He is buried in the Stockbridge Cemetery.
In the 1870s–80s, Field entered into the transportation business. He served as president of the New York Elevated Railroad Company in 1877–1880 and collaborated with Jay Gould on developing the Wabash Railroad. He also owned the Mail and Express, a New York newspaper. Bad investments deprived Field of his fortune. He lived modestly during the last five years of his life in his native Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and died in 1892 at the age of 72. He is buried in the Stockbridge Cemetery.