Cables, Submarine -- History; Field, Cyrus W. (Cyrus West), 1819-1892; Inventors -- United States -- Biography
Mr. Field was again at St. Paul in 1884, when the changes he found
seemed to him marvellous. Mr. F. E. Church, the artist, who had
originally been of the party, but had left it before the arrival at St.
Paul, wrote early in August:
"I am delighted that you were able to be at the Indian treaty,
which, from the description in your letter and the numerous letters
published in the daily prints, convinces me that the occasion must
have been one of extraordinary interest....
"I am telling marvellous stories here of our adventures to gaping
audiences, and exhibiting my blind fishes with tremendous
effect....
"All accounts from the children in Stockbridge bring alarming
intelligence; it is said that they are getting fat, and nothing
which has been tried has succeeded in stopping the spread of the
complaint. I recommend a month on a Western steamboat in hot
weather."
One of the party, a lady, was not at all times a pleasant travelling
companion. The stage drive, one morning in Kentucky, began at four, and
by six o'clock the sun poured down against the side of the coach in
which the lady was seated. As the heat increased, in the same degree her
irritability was manifested. At last she asked a Southern gentlemen who
was by her to let down the curtain. His answer was: "With pleasure,
madam, if you won't look so damned sight cross." This proved to be the
remedy required; from that time she was good-natured.
From a letter written to a New York paper this is copied:
"NIAGARA FALLS, _August 11, 1851_.
"Among the recent arrivals at the Clifton House are Mlle. Jenny
Lind and Cyrus W. Field and family....
"Jenny Lind arrived yesterday from New York by way of Oswego. She
keeps strictly private, and has her meals served in her own room.
Last evening she was amusing herself by singing, accompanied by Mr.
Scharfenberg, in her own rooms, with closed doors. Soon a crowd of
a hundred had gathered round her door, without a whisper being
heard. She sang for about half an hour, when, suddenly opening her
door, she stepped in the hall for a candle, and then you would have
laughed outright to see the people scamper, she looking so
indignant."
When Mr. Field built the house on Gramercy Park, which was at first
numbered 84 East Twenty-first Street, that and the one next to it were
the only ones between Lexington and Third avenues, and the east side of
Gramercy Park was a large vacant lot. This house was afterwards known as
123 East Twenty-first Street, and there forty happy years were passed.
CHAPTER IV
OUT OF DEBT--A VOYAGE TO SOUTH AMERICA
(1853)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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