"The office of the new Electric Telegraph Company has been surrounded the last two or three days by the men who had been engaged the last year on the line, and who are being paid all debts, dues, and demands against the old association. We look upon the readiness with which these claims are liquidated as a substantial indication on the part of the new Company that they will complete to the letter all that they have declared to accomplish in this important undertaking."
In the early part of May, the two gentlemen who had remained behind in Newfoundland rejoined their associates in New York, and there the charter was formally accepted and the Company organized. As all the associates had not arrived till Saturday evening, the 6th of May, and as one of them was to leave town on Monday morning, it was agreed that they should meet for organization at six o'clock of that day. At that hour they came to the house of Mr. Field's brother Dudley, and as the first rays of the morning sun streamed into the windows, the formal organization took place. The charter was accepted, the stock subscribed, and the officers chosen. Mr. Cooper, Mr. Taylor, Mr. Field, Mr. Roberts, and Mr. White were the first directors. Mr. Cooper was chosen President, Mr. White, Vice-President, and Mr. Taylor, Treasurer.
This is a short story, and soon told. It seemed a light affair, for half a dozen men to meet in the early morning and toss off such a business before breakfast. But what a work was that to which they thus put their hands! A capital of a million and a half of dollars was subscribed in those few minutes, and a company put in operation that was to carry a line of telegraph to St. John's, more than a thousand miles from New York, and then to span the wild sea. Well was it that they who undertook the work did not then fully realize its magnitude, or they would have shrunk from the attempt. Well was it for them that the veil was not lifted, which shut from their eyes the long delay, the immense toil, and the heavy burdens of many wearisome years. Such a prospect might have chilled the most sanguine spirit. But a kind Providence gives men strength for their day, imposes burdens as they are able to bear them, and thus leads them on to greater achievements than they knew.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] Although it is anticipating a year in time, I cannot resist the pleasure of adding here the name of another eminent merchant, who afterward joined this little Company, Mr. Wilson G. Hunt. Mr. Hunt is one of the old merchants of New York who, through his whole career, has maintained the highest reputation for commercial integrity, and whose fortune is the reward of a long life of honorable industry. He joined the Company in 1855, and was a strong and steady friend through all its troubles till the final success.
CHAPTER IV.
CROSSING NEWFOUNDLAND.
There is nothing in the world easier than to build a line of railroad, or of telegraph, on paper. You have only to take the map, and mark the points to be connected, and then with a single sweep of the pencil to draw the line along which the iron track is to run. In this airy flight of the imagination, distances are nothing. A thousand leagues vanish at a stroke. All obstacles disappear. The valleys are exalted, and the hills are made low, soaring arches span the mountain streams, and the chasms are leaped in safety by the fire-drawn cars.
Very different is it to construct a line of railroad or of telegraph in reality; to come with an army of laborers, with axes on their shoulders to cut down the forests, and with spades in their hands to cast up the highway. Then poetry sinks to prose, and instead of flying over the space on wings, one must traverse it on foot, slowly and with painful steps. Nature asserts her power; and, as if resentful of the disdain with which man in his pride affected to leap over her, she piles up new barriers in his way. The mountains with their rugged sides cannot be moved out of their place, the rocks must be cleft in twain, to open a passage for the conqueror, before he can begin his triumphal march. The woods thicken into an impassable jungle; and the morass sinks deeper, threatening to swallow up the horse and his rider; until the rash projector is startled at his own audacity. Then it becomes a contest of forces between man and nature, in which, if he would be victorious, he must fight his way. The barriers of nature cannot be lightly pushed aside, but must yield at last only to time and toil, and "man's unconquerable will."