Cyrus West Field (November 30, 1819July 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
The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...
in 1858.
Early life
Field was born in
Stockbridge, Massachusetts
Stockbridge is a town in Berkshire County in Western Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,018 at the 2020 census. A year-round resort area, Stockbridg ...
to Rev.
David Dudley Field
David Dudley Field II (February 13, 1805April 13, 1894) was an American lawyer and law reformer who made major contributions to the development of American civil procedure. His greatest accomplishment was engineering the move away from common ...
, a Congregational
clergy
Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...
man, 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
Stephen Johnson Field (November 4, 1816 – April 9, 1899) was an American jurist. He was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from May 20, 1863, to December 1, 1897, the second longest tenure of any justice. Prior to this ap ...
, the 38th United States Supreme Court Justice, among other siblings. When he was 15 years old, Field came to
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
, where he was hired as an errand boy in the
A.T. Stewart & Co., a
dry goods
Dry goods is a historic term describing the type of product line a store carries, which differs by region. The term comes from the textile trade, and the shops appear to have spread with the mercantile trade across the British Empire (and Common ...
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.
[Judson, I. F. (1896)]
Cyrus W. Field, his life and work, 1819–1892.
New York: Harper & Brothers. 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.
Getting started in business
Although Field had many available career options, he chose business. This 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
A paper mill is a factory devoted to making paper from vegetable fibres such as wood pulp, old rags, and other ingredients. Prior to the invention and adoption of the Fourdrinier machine and other types of paper machine that use an endless belt ...
venture, the Columbia Mill, in
Lee, Massachusetts
Lee is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, metropolitan statistical area. The population was 5,788 at the 2020 census. Lee, which includes the villages of South and East Lee, is ...
. In Spring 1840, he went into business by himself, manufacturing paper in
Westfield, Massachusetts
Westfield is a city in Hampden County, Massachusetts, Hampden County, in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts, United States. Westfield was first settled by Europeans in 1660. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Springfield metrop ...
. The same year, he became 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 was furnishing supplies for the Northeast mills, such as owned by
Crane & Company, and buying the finished product wholesale.
[Richard R. John]
Field, Cyrus West
''American National Biography Online'', February 2000. Retrieved November 30, 2015. 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
Penny Publications, LLC is an American magazine publisher specializing in puzzles, crosswords, sudokus as well as mystery and science fiction magazines. Penny Publications publishes over 85 magazines distributed through newsstands, in store ...
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 the answers received, one particularly stated,
Midlife

Business earnings permitted Field to partially retire at the age of 34 with a fortune of $250,000 and build a home in
Gramercy Park
Gramercy ParkSometimes misspelled as Grammercy () is the name of both a small, fenced-in private park, and the surrounding neighborhood (which is also referred to as Gramercy), in Manhattan in New York City.
The approximately park, located ...
.
[ pp. 675–676] In 1853, Field financed an expedition to South America with his artist friend
Frederic Edwin Church
Frederic Edwin Church (May 4, 1826 – April 7, 1900) was an American landscape painting, landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters, best known for paintin ...
, during which they explored present-day
Ecuador
Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...
,
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...
, and
Panama
Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a country in Latin America at the southern end of Central America, bordering South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and ...
. They followed the route taken by
Alexander von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 1769 – 6 May 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, natural history, naturalist, List of explorers, explorer, and proponent of Romanticism, Romantic philosophy and Romanticism ...
over 50 years earlier. Church's sketches of the landscapes and volcanoes on this trip, and on 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
Muzo () is a town and municipality in the Western Boyacá Province, part of the department of Boyacá, Colombia. It is widely known as the world capital of emeralds for the mines containing the world's highest quality gems of this type. Muzo ...
.
Field turned his attention to
telegraphy
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas pi ...
after he 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
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
, started the work, but failed due to the lack of capital. Later that year he, with
Peter Cooper
Peter Cooper (February 12, 1791April 4, 1883) was an American industrialist, inventor, philanthropist, and politician. He designed and built the first American steam locomotive, the ''Tom Thumb (locomotive), Tom Thumb'', founded the Cooper Union ...
,
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 a telegraph line connecting
St. John's, Newfoundland with
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, located on its east coast. It is one of the three Maritime Canada, Maritime provinces and Population of Canada by province and territory, most populous province in Atlan ...
, 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 the same investors formed the
American Telegraph Company and began buying up other companies, rationalizing them into a consolidated system that ran from
Maine
Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...
to the Gulf Coast; the system was second only to
Western Union
The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Denver, Denver, Colorado.
Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the co ...
'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
Transatlantic telegraph cables were undersea cables running under the Atlantic Ocean for telegraph communications. Telegraphy is a largely obsolete form of communication, and the cables have long since been decommissioned, but telephone and dat ...
, utilizing a shallow submarine plateau that ran between
Ireland
Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
and
Newfoundland
Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region of Labrador, having a total size of . As of 2025 the population ...
.
The cable was officially opened on August 16, 1858, when
Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...
sent President
James Buchanan
James Buchanan Jr. ( ; April 23, 1791June 1, 1868) was the 15th president of the United States, serving from 1857 to 1861. He also served as the United States Secretary of State, secretary of state from 1845 to 1849 and represented Pennsylvan ...
a message in
Morse code
Morse code is a telecommunications method which Character encoding, encodes Written language, text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code i ...
. 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
The Panic of 1857 was a financial crisis in the United States caused by the declining international economy and over-expansion of the domestic economy. Because of the invention of the telegraph
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission ...
, Field's paper business suspended, and
Peter Cooper
Peter Cooper (February 12, 1791April 4, 1883) was an American industrialist, inventor, philanthropist, and politician. He designed and built the first American steam locomotive, the ''Tom Thumb (locomotive), Tom Thumb'', founded the Cooper Union ...
, his neighbor in
Gramercy Park
Gramercy ParkSometimes misspelled as Grammercy () is the name of both a small, fenced-in private park, and the surrounding neighborhood (which is also referred to as Gramercy), in Manhattan in New York City.
The approximately park, located ...
, was the only one that kept him from going under.
On August 26, 1858, Field returned to a triumphant homecoming at
Great Barrington, Massachusetts
Great Barrington is a New England town, town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 7,172 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Bot ...
, saluting this Massachusetts boy made good. "This has been a great day here," trumpeted ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
,'' "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
Lord Clarendon and
William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British politican, starting as Conservative MP for Newark and later becoming the leader of the Liberal Party (UK), Liberal Party.
In a career lasting over 60 years, he ...
, the British
Finance Minister
A ministry of finance is a ministry or other government agency in charge of government finance, fiscal policy, and financial regulation. It is headed by a finance minister, an executive or cabinet position .
A ministry of finance's portfoli ...
at the time. Field's communications with Gladstone would become important in the middle of the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...
, 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
The Confederate States of America (CSA), also known as the Confederate States (C.S.), the Confederacy, or Dixieland, was an List of historical unrecognized states and dependencies, unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United State ...
.
In 1866, Field laid a new, more durable trans-Atlantic cable using Brunel's . ''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 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
A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition, is a large global exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specific site for a perio ...
in Paris for his work on the transatlantic cable.
Later years
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
Jason Gould (; May 27, 1836 – December 2, 1892) was an American railroad magnate and financial speculator who founded the Gould family, Gould business dynasty. He is generally identified as one of the Robber baron (industrialist), robber bar ...
on developing the
Wabash Railroad
The Wabash Railroad was a Class I railroad that operated in the mid-central United States. It served a large area, including track in the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, and Missouri and the province of Ontario. Its primary con ...
. Field also loaned
Henry W. Grady
Henry Woodfin Grady (May 24, 1850 – December 23, 1889) was an American journalist and orator who helped reintegrate the states of the Confederacy (American Civil War), Confederacy into the Union (American Civil War), Union after the American C ...
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
Stockbridge is a town in Berkshire County in Western Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,018 at the 2020 census. A year-round resort area, Stockbridg ...
, and died in 1892 at the age of 72.
Commemoration
Field and his wife are buried in Stockbridge, Massachusetts in 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
The Canadian Pacific Railway () , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadian Pacific Kansas City, Canadian Pacific Ka ...
named the community of
Field
Field may refer to:
Expanses of open ground
* Field (agriculture), an area of land used for agricultural purposes
* Airfield, an aerodrome that lacks the infrastructure of an airport
* Battlefield
* Lawn, an area of mowed grass
* Meadow, a grass ...
,
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...
, Canada in his honor.
Cyrus Field Road, in
Irvington, New York
Irvington, sometimes known as Irvington-on-Hudson, is a suburban Administrative divisions of New York#Village, village of the Administrative divisions of New York#Town, town of Greenburgh, New York, Greenburgh in Westchester County, New York, Un ...
, where he died, is named after him.
''
Fieldia'', the burrowing
Cambrian
The Cambrian ( ) is the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 51.95 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran period 538.8 Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Ordov ...
worm, is named after Field.
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 5,079 at the 2020 census. The mayor of Ardsley is Nancy Kaboolian.
The Ardsley post office serves the en ...
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.
References
;Notes
;Bibliography
*Carter, Samuel. ''Cyrus Field: Man of Two Worlds.'' New York: Putnam, 1968.
*Hearn, Chester G. "Circuits in the Sea: the Men, the Ships, and the Atlantic Cable. Westport: Connecticut, Praeger, 2004"
*
Gordon, John Steele. ''A Thread Across the Ocean: The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable.'' New York: Harper Perennial, 2003.
*Judson, Isabella F. ''Cyrus W. Field, His Life and Work, 1819–1892.'' New York: Harper & Brothers, 1896.
*Klein, Carole. ''Gramercy Park: An American Bloomsbury.'' Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.
*Thompson, Robert L. ''Wiring a Continent: The History of the Telegraph Industry in the United States, 1832–1866.'' Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1947.
External links
* Bill Burns
History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications: Cyrus W. Field ''Atlantic-Cable.com''
Cyrus Field (1819–1892) ''The Great Transatlantic Cable'', PBS
{{DEFAULTSORT:Field, Cyrus W.
1819 births
1892 deaths
Congressional Gold Medal recipients
People from Stockbridge, Massachusetts
19th-century American businesspeople
Telegraphy
Submarine communications cables
People from Irvington, New York