With a feeling of deep humility that I have made many important omissions in Mr. Gould’s variegated career, although I have surrendered all the space to him that I can very well afford, I now beg to take my leave of him, at least so far as the present edition is concerned.
Cyrus W. Field.
CHAPTER LIX.
MEN OF MARK.
Cyrus W. Field—Hon. Stephen V. White—Austin Corbin—Philip D. Armour—Hon. Levi P. Morton—John A. Stewart—Anthony J. Drexel—The Jerome Brothers—Addison Cammack—Russell Sage—Chauncey M. Depew—James M. Brown—Stedman the poet—Victor H. Newcombe—Moses Taylor—Former Giants of the Street—Henry Keep—Anthony W. Morse.
Cyrus W. Field.
Cyrus W. Field has been termed a locomotive in trousers. The simile illustrates the indefatigable energy of the man. His indomitable resolution and his energy of character have placed him high among the distinguished men of the age. He was born at Stockbridge, Mass., in 1819. His father was a clergyman. At fifteen years of age, Cyrus W. Field came to New York with a trifling sum in his pocket. For three years he was in the employ of A. T. Stewart, the dry goods merchant, and then went to Lee, Mass., to work in his brother’s paper mill. Two years later he became a partner in the paper firm of E. Root & Co., in Maiden Lane, but the co-partnership was not successful. Later on he again went into the paper business, and by 1853 had acquired a competence, whereupon he partially withdrew from mercantile pursuits, and his health having failed he took a trip to South America. He was about to withdraw entirely from business, when he was induced, with considerable difficulty, to look into a project for laying a telegraphic cable to England. Frederick N. Gisbourne had interested Matthew D. Field, a civil engineer, and a brother of Cyrus W. Field, in a project for establishing a telegraph line between New York and St. John’s, Newfoundland, partly on poles, partly under ground, and partly under water. At St. John’s, the fastest steamers ever built were to sail for Ireland, and the time between the two countries was to be shortened to six days or less. A company had attempted to carry out this project, and had become bankrupt. The idea was un-American; it was unsatisfactory; much quicker communication was needed. It was not till Mr. Field conceived the idea of laying a cable direct from Newfoundland to Ireland, that he became really interested in the enterprise. He was assured by high scientific authority that the idea could be carried out. In March, 1854, Mr. Field went to St. John’s, Newfoundland, and obtained from the legislature a charter, granting an exclusive right for fifty years, to establish a telegraph line from the Continent of America to Newfoundland and thence to Europe. Then, with considerable difficulty, he obtained in New York subscriptions amounting to $1,500,000, which he thought would be sufficient. The line really cost $1,834,500, being more than 2,600 miles long. His first attempt failed in 1857. He succeeded in the following year, and then the cable became silent, and the incredulous public thought that this would end all attempts to do something that seemed miraculous. For seven years no attempt was made to lay a cable, as the Civil War intervened, but in 1865 Mr. Field again took up the enterprise, in which he had never lost faith. By this time sub-marine telegraphy had been greatly improved, a better cable was constructed, and a better machine for laying it was invented. The famous steamer Great Eastern took the cable, but after going some 1,200 miles, the great vessel gave a lurch that broke the cable and an attempt to grapple it was unsuccessful. In 1866, however, a cable was successfully laid. A private citizen seldom receives such honors as was showered on Mr. Field, in 1866, when Europe and America realized that largely through the exertions of one man, they were joined by the Atlantic cable. He had pushed a vast project to a successful consummation in spite of incredulity, ridicule, indifference and strenuous opposition.
Peter the Hermit did not preach the crusade with more fervor and enthusiasm than this priest of commerce, so to speak, advocated the great work with which history will always link his name. If any one had, a few centuries ago, ventured to predict that the day would come when there would be six or seven cable telegraphs stretched along the ocean bed between America and Europe—along dim prehistoric valleys, four miles under water and over great sub-marine mountains—by means of which a message could be sent nearly three thousand miles and an answer received in thirty seconds; he would have been in danger of incarceration as a lunatic, or even of death on the scaffold or at the stake. This daring utilitarian age, however, has grown accustomed to startling exhibitions of human ingenuity. Mr. Field owns considerable Western Union stock, and is interested in a number of railroads, including the Manhattan Elevated. He owns one-fifth of the stock of the Acadia Coal Co., is a special partner in the grain firm of Field, Lindley & Co., and owns the Mail and Express, one of the great papers of the metropolis. He has a house in Gramercy Park and a fine mansion at Irvington on an estate of about 500 acres. He is a large owner of real estate in that very pleasant section, owning some 56 houses besides considerable land. He is fully six feet in height, of light complexion, with penetrating, bluish-gray eyes, which peer sharply into those of an interlocutor. The nose is prominent, the brows knit with years of thought, the mouth and jaw indicate great decision of character. He is a man of courtly manners and exceptional abilities.
