Cyrus West Field
Encyclopedia
Cyrus West Field was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 businessman and financier who, along with other entrepreneurs, created the Atlantic Telegraph Company
Atlantic Telegraph Company
The Atlantic Telegraph Company was a company formed in 1856 to undertake and exploit a commercial telegraph cable across the Atlantic ocean, the first such telecommunications link....

 and laid the first telegraph cable
Transatlantic telegraph cable
The transatlantic telegraph cable was the first cable used for telegraph communications laid across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. It crossed from , Foilhommerum Bay, Valentia Island, in western Ireland to Heart's Content in eastern Newfoundland. The transatlantic cable connected North America...

 across the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

 in 1858.

Life and career

Field was born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts
Stockbridge, Massachusetts
Stockbridge is a town in Berkshire County in Western Massachusetts. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 1,947 at the 2010 census...

 to David Dudley Field, a clergy
Clergy
Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....

man. He was the brother of David Dudley Field II, Henry Martyn Field
Henry Martyn Field (minister)
Henry Martyn Field was an American author and clergyman.Brother of Cyrus West Field, David Dudley Field II, and Stephen Johnson Field, he was born at Stockbridge, Massachusetts; he graduated at Williams College in 1838, and was pastor of a Presbyterian church in St Louis, Missouri, from 1842 to...

, and Stephen Johnson Field
Stephen Johnson Field
Stephen Johnson Field was an American jurist. He was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court of the United States Supreme Court from May 20, 1863, to December 1, 1897...

. When he was 15 years old, he moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, where he worked as an errand boy in the largest dry goods
Dry goods
Dry goods are products such as textiles, ready-to-wear clothing, and sundries. In U.S. retailing, a dry goods store carries consumer goods that are distinct from those carried by hardware stores and grocery stores, though "dry goods" as a term for textiles has been dated back to 1742 in England or...

 emporium in the city, but after three years he returned to Stockbridge. He moved to New York City again around 1840.

Field went into paper manufacturing
Paper
Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....

, servicing the burgeoning penny press
Penny press
Penny press newspapers were cheap, tabloid-style papers produced in the middle of the 19th century.- History :As the East Coast's middle and working classes grew, so did the new public’s desire for news. Penny papers emerged as a cheap source with coverage of crime, tragedy, adventure, and gossip...

 and the need for stocks and bonds, and became one of the city's richest men. Profits permitted him to retire at the age 34 with a fortune of $250,000, and buy a home in Gramercy Park
Gramercy Park
Gramercy Park is a small, fenced-in private park in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park is at the core of both the neighborhood referred to as either Gramercy or Gramercy Park and the Gramercy Park Historic District...

. In the 1850s he financed the expeditions of Frederic Edwin Church
Frederic Edwin Church
Frederic Edwin Church was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters...

 that led the painter into the Andes
Andes
The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...

 and provided the painter with plenty of visual input. By commissioning some of Church's most well known paintings, Field hoped to lure investors into South America to support his ventures there.

Field now turned his attention to telegraphy
Telegraphy
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages via some form of signalling technology. Telegraphy requires messages to be converted to a code which is known to both sender and receiver...

. Together with Peter Cooper
Peter Cooper
Peter Cooper was an American industrialist, inventor, philanthropist, and candidate for President of the United States...

, Abram Stevens Hewitt
Abram Stevens Hewitt
Abram Stevens Hewitt was a teacher, lawyer, an iron manufacturer, chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1876 to 1877, U.S. Congressman, and a mayor of New York. He was the son-in-law of Peter Cooper , an industrialist, inventor and philanthropist...

, Moses Taylor
Moses Taylor
Moses Taylor was a 19th century New York merchant and banker and one of the wealthiest men of that century. At his death, his estate was reported to be worth $70 million, or about $ billion in today's dollars. He controlled the National City Bank of New York , the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western...

 and Samuel F.B. Morse, in 1854 he laid a 400-mile telegraph line connecting St. John's, Newfoundland with Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...

, where telegraph lines from the U.S. terminated. The next year they formed the American Telegraph Company and began buying up other companies, rationalizing them into a consolidated system that ran from Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...

 to the Gulf Coast; the system was second only to Western Union
Western Union
The Western Union Company is a financial services and communications company based in the United States. Its North American headquarters is in Englewood, Colorado. Up until 2006, Western Union was the best-known U.S...

's.

In 1857, after securing financing in England and backing from the American and British governments, the Atlantic Telegraph Company
Atlantic Telegraph Company
The Atlantic Telegraph Company was a company formed in 1856 to undertake and exploit a commercial telegraph cable across the Atlantic ocean, the first such telecommunications link....

 began laying the first telegraph cable
Transatlantic telegraph cable
The transatlantic telegraph cable was the first cable used for telegraph communications laid across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. It crossed from , Foilhommerum Bay, Valentia Island, in western Ireland to Heart's Content in eastern Newfoundland. The transatlantic cable connected North America...

, utilizing a shallow submarine plateau that ran between Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 and Newfoundland. The cable was officially opened on August 16, 1858, when Queen Victoria sent President James Buchanan
James Buchanan
James Buchanan, Jr. was the 15th President of the United States . He is the only president from Pennsylvania, the only president who remained a lifelong bachelor and the last to be born in the 18th century....

 a message in Morse code
Morse code
Morse code is a method of transmitting textual information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment...

. 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
Panic of 1857
The Panic of 1857 was a financial panic in the United States caused by the declining international economy and over-expansion of the domestic economy. Indeed, because of the interconnectedness of the world economy by the time of the 1850s, the financial crisis which began in the autumn of 1857 was...

, Field's paper business suspended, and he was kept from going under by his neighbor in Gramercy Park
Gramercy Park
Gramercy Park is a small, fenced-in private park in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park is at the core of both the neighborhood referred to as either Gramercy or Gramercy Park and the Gramercy Park Historic District...

, Peter Cooper
Peter Cooper
Peter Cooper was an American industrialist, inventor, philanthropist, and candidate for President of the United States...

.

On August 26, 1858, Field returned to a triumphant homecoming at Great Barrington, Massachusetts
Great Barrington, Massachusetts
Great Barrington is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 7,104 at the 2010 census. Both a summer resort and home to Ski Butternut, Great Barrington includes the villages of Van...

, saluting this Massachusetts boy made good. "This has been a great day here," trumpeted The New York Times. "The occasion was the reception of the welcome of Cyrus W. Field, Esq., the world-renowned parent of the Atlantic Telegraph Cable scheme, which has been so successfully completed."

Field's activities brought him into contact with a number of prominent persons on both sides of the Atlantic – including William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...

, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer
Chancellor of the Exchequer
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...

 (Finance Minister). Field's communications with Gladstone would become important in the middle of the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

, 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
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...

.

In 1866, Field laid a new, more durable trans-Atlantic cable which 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 which had parted in mid-ocean, reattached it to new wire, thus allowing for a second, backup wire for communication.

In December 1884, the Canadian Pacific Railway
Canadian Pacific Railway
The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...

 named the community of Field
Field, British Columbia
Field is an unincorporated settlement of approximately 300 people located in the Kicking Horse River valley of southeastern British Columbia,Canada, within the confines of Yoho National Park....

, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 in his honor. Bad investments left Field bankrupt at the end of his life.

Field and his wife Mary Bryan Stone had seven children. Cyrus Field Road, in Irvington, New York
Irvington, New York
Irvington, sometimes known as Irvington-on-Hudson, is an affluent suburban village in the town of Greenburgh in Westchester County, New York, United States. It is located on the eastern bank of the Hudson River, north of midtown Manhattan in New York City, and is served by a station stop on the...

, where he died, is named after him. Ardsley, New York
Ardsley, New York
Ardsley is a village in Westchester County, New York, United States. It is part of the town of Greenburgh. The village's population was 4,452 at the 2010 census. The current mayor of Ardsley is Jay Leon....

 was named after Field's family.

External links

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