| Born in 1819, Cyrus West Field began work
at age fifteen as an office boy for A. T. Stewart & Co., New York City's
first department store. By age twenty, he was a partner in a paper manufacturing
company, and at thirty-three he retired from business a wealthy man.
Click here for an article on Field as paper
merchant.
In 1854 Field began the quest to lay a telegraphic
cable across the Atlantic Ocean. After several failed attempts, in August
1858 Field arranged for Queen Victoria to send the first transatlantic
message to President James Buchanan, and New York erupted in celebrations,
lauding Field, telegraph inventor Samuel F. B. Morse, modern technology,
and American ingenuity in general. But the cable broke after just three
weeks, and Field did not complete his project until 1866.
Field posed for the portrait in 1858, and in an unusual
departure, Brady added two telling props - a length of wire cable and
a globe.
(from the description of the portrait at
the National Portrait Gallery) |
Mathew Brady Studio,
Imperial salted-paper print,
1858. 44.8 x 35.7 cm
(17 5/8 x 14 1/16 inches)
Image courtesy of
National Portrait Gallery,
Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, D.C. |
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From Isabella Field Judson's book Cyrus W. Field, His Life and Work.
Credited to Mathew Brady, 1860 |
Carte
de visite
photograph
by Matthew Brady |
|
Photographer unknown,
portrait from the book
The Atlantic Telegraph (1865),
published in London, so
perhaps a British photograph. |
Charles D. Fredricks
& Co. "Specialite"
587 Broadway, New York |
Another pose from the
same
session by Fredricks.
Image courtesy of Bill Varsell |
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Cyrus Field's
Globe
When Frederick
Gisborne met with Cyrus Field early in 1854, it was with the intention
of persuading Field to invest in his Newfoundland telegraph company. Field
was not very enthusiastic about this project, but his brother, Henry,
reports:
“After (Gisborne) left, Mr. Field
took the globe which was standing in the library and began to turn it
over. It was while thus studying the globe that the idea first occurred
to him, that the telegraph migh be carrier further still, and be made
to span the Atlantic Ocean.”
The globe appears in Mathew Brady's portraits
of Field, and in other photographs, and is featured in Daniel Huntington's
painting, The Atlantic Cable Projectors.
After Field's death in 1892 his family
offered many of his possessions to the Smithsonian, and Field's globe
is now in the National Museum of American History. Cyrus
Field's will gives details of a number of his cable-related presentation
pieces and souvenirs. |
A young Cyrus Field,
photographer unknown |
Engraving after the
Brady
carte de visite
photograph above |
Steel engraving from The Knickerbocker, October 1858 |
|
CDV by Rockwood,
839 Broadway, New York
About 1860? |
CDV by John & Chas Watkins,
34 Parliament St., London.
A little later than the Brady
photographs, perhaps early 1860s.
Click to see the
photographers' backstamp |
Another Watkins CDV,
a different printing of the
same image, with a
different backstamp |
|
CDV by Sarony,
680 Broadway, N.Y.
Photographer's backstamp |
CDV by Sarony,
680 Broadway, N.Y. |
CDV by Sarony,
680 Broadway, N. Y.
Image courtesy of Jim Kreuzer |
|
Cabinet card by Sarony,
680 Broadway, New York |
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year of 1872, by Happy Hours Company, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D.C. |
Cabinet card by Falk,
949 Broadway, N.Y. |
|
Cyrus Field, from a
1910 tobacco card in the series "Men of History", free
with Royal Bengals Little Cigars.
Click here to see the back of the card.
|
From Isabella Field
Judson's book Cyrus W. Field, His Life and Work |
Cyrus Field, from
The Prominent Men of the New York
Stock Exchange Collection,
Harper & Brothers, 1885 |
|
Engraving by A.B. Walter,
from the book Men of our Day
by L.P. Brockett, Philadelphia, 1872. |
Giants of America -
perhaps a page from a book? |
Portrait by Daniel Huntington.
Original in
Metropolitan
Museum
of Art, New York |
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Cyrus Field on board Great Eastern,
1866, observing the test
of the
recovered cable of 1865.
From The Illustrated London News, Oct 13, 1866. |
Another view of the same scene,
from the painting by Robert Dudley |
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Cable Cabinet cigar
box label, circa 1895. From the left: Cyrus
Field, Chandler White, S.F.B. Morse, Moses Taylor, Marshall
O. Roberts, Peter Cooper.
This is a re-creation of the 10 March 1854 meeting at Cyrus Field's
home in Gramercy Park, New York.
Samuel Morse was not
present at the meeting, but as company electrician he was publicly
associated with the project and the artist included him here.
See The
Atlantic Cable Projectors for more information on this meeting.
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These checks were included
with a
copy of Cyrus W. Field,
His Life and Work. A pencilled note inside the
back cover of the book reads: "100 of the checks were found in
Kalamazoo Paper Mill Waste about 1920".
One of the checks is for $512,050.00, payable to H.R. Bishop, director of construction for the New York Elevated Railroad company, which Field had taken over in 1877; the other is to Tiffany & Co.,
who sold the souvenirs of the 1858 cable,
and printed the 25th anniversary
invitations in 1879. |
|
"Big Bugs" cigar box inner label. De Capo Cigar Factory
Judge Dillon, Cyrus W. Field, William H. Vanderbilt, Russel Sage, and James R Keene were all associated with Jay Gould. The date of the cigar box is unknown, but perhaps 1880s.
John Russell Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms (1877) defines Big Bugs as: "People of consequence. Probably the origin of this word lies hid in some anecdote that would be worth finding out." |
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1926 Interstate News Service Card No. 102
"Laying the First Atlantic Cable" |
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The Parsonage, Stockbridge, Massachusetts, 2010.
Cyrus Field was born here in 1819 and is buried in the
family plot at Stockbridge Cemetery across the street.
Photograph by
Barbara Allen, courtesy of Christopher Field |
Cyrus West Field and Mary Stone Field
Gravestone inscription
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W. Duke Sons & Co., Life of
Cyrus W. Field
16-page booklet, 2-3/4" x 1-1/2",
published in the
1880s by Knapp & Company of New York as one
of a series of cigarette cards for Duke's Cigarettes.
The series title was Poor Boys Who Have
Become Rich, And Other Famous People. |
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Cyrus Field's country home "Ardsley"
at Irvington on Hudson, New York
The University of Maryland has a photo album with 38 views of the 780-acre Ardsley estate. As well as Field's own mansion, the estate included houses for each of his children, stables, kennels, an ice-house, graftery, and conservatory, among other structures. |
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Cyrus Field lived for 40
years in Gramercy Park in Manhattan, at Lexington Avenue and 21st
Street (Gramercy Park North). His house (shown in 1886, above
left) was replaced long ago with another building, although similar
houses can still be found on the other side of the park. The
building on the former site of his house has a historical marker,
shown in these photographs taken in October 2001.
Cyrus Field's former house in 1903. At that time it was the Henry William Poor residence, Mr Poor having rebuilt the interior in 1902. |
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Cyrus Field's Beekman Street Warehouse from a contemporary advertisement |
Stereoview of the 1859
fire at Cyrus Field's
Beekman Street warehouse.
Anthony's Instantaneous Views No. 255.
Image of the back of the card
|
Stereoview of the Cyrus
Field
Building in New York |
The Cyrus W. Field Building at the Battery and
Broadway,
New York.
E.H. Kendall, Architect
From The American Architect and Building News, October 9th 1886
|
Cyrus Field's letterhead gives the address as
"Washington Building, 1 Broadway" |
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Cyrus Field medals now have their own page, which also includes other cable-related medals and tokens
Portraits
and photographs
of Cyrus W. Field in public collections in the US are listed at the
National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution. Click on this link and enter Cyrus W Field as Sitter Name to see the list of Field portraits.
Descendants of Cyrus W. Field. Diane Druin Gravlee, Cyrus Field's great-great-granddaughter, has done extensive research
on
Cyrus Field and his descendants. Click on this link to view her comprehensive list of descendants.
Field Family Portraits. Peter Christian Hall and Alix-Marie Hall, New York City-based siblings whose great-grandfather was Frederick
Joseph Stone, Cyrus Field's nephew, share images of paintings of of Cyrus Field and his parents, wife, and sons.
The Brothers Field - Russell Carpenter's history of the five brothers of the Field family who held among them a total of 10 academic and honorary degrees from Williams College.
Cyrus W. Field, Junk Dealer. Field made his fortune as a paper manufacturer and wholesaler and needed a constant supply of rags as raw material. To this end he was licensed by the City of New-York and included in the Corporation's “list of the licensed keepers of junk shops”. This was, of course, only incidental to his main business, although his enemies sometimes referred to him as a “junk dealer”.
The Chapin Library at Williams College in Massachusetts has an archive of Field family papers which includes material from Cyrus W. Field. Some images are on line, and the page also has links to other sources.
Tribute to Cyrus Field from his many friends in Britain on the occasion of his 50th wedding anniversary in 1890. |
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