Cables, Submarine -- History; Field, Cyrus W. (Cyrus West), 1819-1892; Inventors -- United States -- Biography
"_Dear Mr. Cyrus Field,_--I thank you for your telegram. The
gratifying intelligence which it contains may probably come through
another channel. In the meantime, unofficially, I express the hope
that we may one and all consider it a personal duty to cherish and
foster the feelings so admirably expressed in the President's
order, and prevailing, happily, alike on both sides of the
Atlantic.
"I remain, very faithfully yours,
"WM. E. GLADSTONE."
In April, 1882, he suffered quite a disagreeable experience. One evening
a police officer and two or three gentlemen came to the house, bringing
the torn and burned remains of a package addressed to him. It had been
in the mail-bag which a postman threw on the platform of the Third
Avenue elevated road as he stepped off the train. As the bag fell there
was an immediate explosion, and, upon examination, the box and wrapper
of the package were found. The wrapper was an old German newspaper with
Mr. Field's name on it, and another like package in the bag bore the
name of Mr. Wm. H. Vanderbilt.
He took the matter very calmly, only afterwards telling the butler that
no package brought to the house must be delivered until it had first
been plunged in a bucket of water. This order spread consternation among
some members of the family, who trembled for their new spring clothes.
On August 25, 1884, he left Tarrytown in the car "Railway Age," with
several members of his family, for a journey that lasted six weeks, and
during that time he travelled 11,000 miles by rail and 300 by boat. On
September 12th he left Portland, Oregon, for Tacoma, and early on the
morning of the 13th, as he was waiting at Utsaladdy for the tide to
carry the _North Pacific,_ the boat he was on, through Deception Pass,
went on shore, and found that it was from this place that the wooden
mast for the _Great Eastern_ had been cut. It was sent to England by
the way of Cape Horn.
September 22d he joined Sir Donald Smith and his party at Silver
Heights, and his car was attached to their special train. Four days were
given to crossing the Rockies and returning to Winnipeg, to the then
western terminus of the Canadian Pacific. On the afternoon of September
24th the cars stopped in front of a large tent; it was the station, and
has since been known as Field.
A few hours earlier, as we all stood looking up at Mount Stephen, and
then off at the mountains, Sir Donald Smith turned to Mr. Field and
said, "That is Mount Field." One of the employés of the road suggested
that it had been already named, but that was of no account; Sir Donald's
word was law, and Mount Field it became.
It was upon one of his Western journeys that he stopped at a telegraph
office, wrote a message, and handed it to the clerk to send. Instead of
turning at once to his instrument, the man studied Mr. Field intently,
and then said, "Are you the original Cyrus?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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