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36-406: Cyrus Field , American businessman and financier, set his sights on laying the first transatlantic underwater telegraph cable after having been contacted by Frederic Newton Gisborne who attempted to connect St. John's, Newfoundland to New York City , but failed due to lack of funding. After inquiring about the feasibility of a transatlantic underwater cable to Lieutenant Matthew Fontaine Maury of

72-521: A 400-mile (640 km) 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

108-491: A Congregational clergyman , and Submit Dickinson Field, daughter of Revolutionary War Captain Noah Dickinson from Somers, Connecticut. The eighth of ten children, he was the brother of David Dudley Field Jr. , Henry Martyn Field , and Stephen Johnson Field , the 38th United States Supreme Court Justice, among other siblings. When he was 15 years old, Field came to New York City , where he was hired as an errand boy in

144-546: A blacksmith, machinist, and businessman, and where he married Rebecca Rendell (née Pugh) of King's Road, St. John's on December 10, 1892. Some of the Rendell blacksmiths went to Gander to work on the building of the airport and town in the 1940s. The last of the Rendells to work in the forge, Ray, used the building until circa 1990. Following Ray's death in 2005, his widow Myrtle Marion Rendell and children passed ownership of

180-479: A junior partner in the E. Root & Co., a wholesale paper firm based in New York with responsibilities to oversee clients and conduct sales away from New York. After six months, 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. He stayed in business and

216-633: 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

252-651: 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 suspended, and Peter Cooper , his neighbor in Gramercy Park ,

288-466: A subsequent trip in 1857 with artist Louis Rémy Mignot , inspired some of his most famous paintings upon his return to New York. Field's list of "Places of Interest to Visit" in South America reflected his interests, including business interests: bridges, volcanoes, waterfalls, and cities, as well as gold mines and the emerald mines of Muzo . Field turned his attention to telegraphy after he

324-630: Is named after Field. Ardsley, New York was named after Field's ancestor, Zechariah Field, on Cyrus Field's request. Zechariah Field was born in East Ardsley, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, and immigrated to America in 1629. Heart%27s Content, Newfoundland and Labrador Heart's Content is an incorporated town in Trinity Bay on the Bay de Verde Peninsula of Newfoundland and Labrador , Canada. The natural harbour that makes up

360-493: The A.T. Stewart & Co. , a dry goods merchant firm. He entered a business apprenticeship, and earned fifty dollars at his first year as a storeroom clerk; his pay was doubled the following year. After three years, he came back to Stockbridge, but returned to New York later in his career. Field married Mary Bryan Stone on December 2, 1840, two days after he turned twenty one, and they had seven children. Although Field had many available career options, he chose business. This

396-718: The Heart's Content Cable Station . The Rendell Forge is a small, one-room, one storey wooden blacksmith shop located in Heart's Content. The Rendell family had a long history of blacksmithing in the community. The first to arrive was blacksmith Charles Rendell, who moved to Heart's Content from Trinity, Trinity Bay, in the early 1800s to craft ironwork for vessels. In 1864–65, four Rendells were listed as blacksmiths: Charles, G., James, and John. The 1904 directory lists five: Giles, Tolson, Charles Sr, John, and John T. Ted Rowe writes, Descendants of Charles Rendell produced an unbroken line in

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432-907: The U.S. Navy , Field formed an agreement with the Englishmen John Watkins Brett and Charles Tilston Bright to create the Atlantic Telegraph Company. It was incorporated in December, 1856 with £ 350,000 capital , raised principally in London , Liverpool , Manchester , and Glasgow . The board of directors was composed of eighteen members from the United Kingdom, nine from the United States, and three from Canada. The original three projectors were joined by E.O.W. Whitehouse , who oversaw

468-712: The Wabash Railroad . Field also loaned Henry W. Grady the $ 20,000 used for Grady to buy a one-quarter interest in the Atlanta Constitution newspaper. 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. Field and his wife are buried in Stockbridge, Massachusetts in

504-563: The 2500 miles (4022 km) of cable to Great Eastern , beginning in February 1865, an operation that took over three months. On the failure of the expedition to lay the second cable in 1865, a third company was formed to raise the capital for a further attempt, the Anglo-American Telegraph Company. Both the hulks and Great Eastern were put to use again in 1866 and again in 1869. The next expedition in 1866

540-646: The Anglo-American Telegraph Company, 1866-1869, are held by BT Archives . Cyrus W. Field 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 ,

576-617: The Atlantic cable from the works at Enderby's wharf, in East Greenwich, London, to Great Eastern at her Sheerness mooring. A new subsidiary company, the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company , under the chairmanship of John Pender was formed to execute the new venture. The cable was coiled down into great cylindrical tanks at the Wharf before being fed into Great Eastern . Amethyst and Iris transferred

612-691: The Stockbridge Cemetery in Berkshire County. His headstone reads: "CYRUS WEST FIELD To whose courage, energy and perseverance the world owes The Atlantic Telegraph." In December 1884, the Canadian Pacific Railway named the community of Field , British Columbia , Canada in his honor. Cyrus Field Road, in Irvington, New York , where he died, is named after him. Fieldia , the burrowing Cambrian worm,

648-463: The age of 34 with a fortune of $ 250,000 and build a home in Gramercy Park . In 1853, 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

684-509: The age of 60 Bela went to Scotland as a blacksmith with the Newfoundland Overseas Forestry Unit . He returned to Heart’s Content at the end of the war and continued with the forge in the 1950s, turning out grapnels, horseshoes and custom ironwork. Following his death his son Ray worked the operation on a part-time basis. James Rendell (son of Charles Sr) moved to East Boston, Massachusetts, where he worked as

720-444: The answers received, one particularly stated, Your only inheritance was a load of debt, cast upon you at the commencement of your business life, which was not caused by lack of foresight or fault on your part. You bore up under this heavy burden and paid it as not one in thousands could or would have done, and by this very act you laid broad the basis of your subsequent success. Business earnings permitted Field to partially retire at

756-432: The area both as snow in the wintertime and moderate rainfall in summer. The Gulf Stream and Labrador Current converge just off the coast of Newfoundland and provide for very dense fog that can linger in the area for days. Heart's Content was given its place in the history of international communications by Cyrus West Field who chose it as the terminus of his Transatlantic telegraph cable , leading to establishment of

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792-569: The assets of the New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company and later merged with The French Transatlantic Cable Company in 1869. The new company set out to recover the lost cable using the CS Albany and CS Medway, working together with The Atlantic Telegraph Company until the two merged in 1873. They then went on to lay two more cables in 1873 and 1874 from Hearts Content, Newfoundland to Valentia Island by CS Robert Lowe in 1873 and CS Minia in 1874. Secretariat records (two volumes) of

828-574: The blacksmith trade in Heart’s Content for three generations. His four sons Charles, Giles, James and John all took up the trade. Son Charles was also Heart’s Content’s first constable, appointed in the 1830s, and was prominent in the Loyal Orange Association. Bela, son of Giles, operated this forge with his son Jim in the 1920s. When business fell off during the depression years Jim moved his family to Hants Harbour. In 1941 at

864-646: The highway cutting across the Bay de Verde peninsula between Victoria on the Conception Bay side and Heart's Content. The climate of the Atlantic Ocean and adjacent land areas is influenced by the temperatures of the surface waters and water currents as well as the winds blowing across the waters. Because of the oceans' great capacity for retaining heat, the climate of Heart's Content is moderate and free of extreme seasonal variations. Precipitation falls on

900-442: The manufacturing of the cables as chief electrician . Curtis M. Lampson served as vice-chairman for over a decade. The board recruited the physicist William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin), who had publicly disputed some of Whitehouse's claims. The two had a tense relationship before Whitehouse was dismissed when the first cable failed in 1858. Later that year, another attempt was made to connect North America and Europe. This attempt

936-644: The previous year and made it into a backup wire to the main cable. 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 transportation business. He served as president of the New York Elevated Railroad Company in 1877–1880 and collaborated with Jay Gould on developing

972-682: The same investors formed the American 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

1008-481: The secessionist southern states in forming the Confederate States of America . In 1866, Field laid a new, more durable trans-Atlantic cable using Brunel's SS  Great Eastern . Great Eastern was, 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

1044-474: The town is located on the east side of Trinity Bay and it is built along the northeast side and the southeast base of this harbour. It opens out to Trinity Bay in a generally southwestern direction and protected from the harsh northern and eastern winds of the North Atlantic. Heart's Content is also at the crossroads of the main highway for Trinity Bay on the western side of the Bay de Verde peninsula and

1080-572: Was a great move for Field. At first, he worked for his brothers, David Dudley Field Jr. and Matthew Dickinson Field. In 1838, he accepted an offer from his brother Matthew to become his assistant in the paper manufacturing venture, the Columbia Mill, in Lee, Massachusetts . In Spring 1840, he went into business by himself, manufacturing paper in Westfield, Massachusetts . The same year, he became

1116-428: Was a success, also succeeding in recovering the lost second cable. The service generated revenues of £1000 in its first day of operation. The approximate price to send a telegram was: one word, one mile (1.6 km)= $ 0.0003809. The Atlantic Telegraph Company operated the only two trans-Atlantic cables without competition until 1869, when a French cable was laid. Shortly after this company was established, an agreement

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1152-514: Was completed on August 5, 1858 and was celebrated by an exchange of messages between Queen Victoria of England and President Buchanan of the United States using the new cable line. When a second cable, under Thomson's supervision, was proposed, the Admiralty lent the hulks of HMS Amethyst and HMS Iris to the Company in 1864, both ships were then extensively modified in 1865 for ferrying

1188-544: 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 Peter Cooper , Abram Stevens Hewitt , Moses Taylor and Samuel F.B. Morse , joined the so-called Cable Cabinet of entrepreneurs, investors and engineers. Through this Cable Cabinet, Field became instrumental in laying

1224-625: Was furnishing supplies for the Northeast mills, such as owned by Crane & Company , 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 insolvency of E. Root & Co. debts in full amount with interest, being under no legal obligation to do so. Among

1260-492: Was made to coordinate pricing of telegraph services and share revenues, effectively combining the French and Anglo-American interests into one combine. A second French company, compagnie française du télégraphe de Paris à New-York , was established in 1879. The Anglo-American Telegraph Company was founded after the failed attempt of laying a second cable by The Atlantic Telegraph Company in 1865. The new telegraph company took over

1296-571: Was the only one that kept him from going under. On August 26, 1858, Field returned to a triumphant homecoming at Great Barrington, Massachusetts , 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

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