The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph

PREFACE

The recent death of Mr. Cyrus W. Field recalls attention to the great enterprise with which his name will be forever associated. "The Atlantic Telegraph," said the late Chief Justice Chase, "is the most wonderful achievement of civilization, and entitles its author to a distinguished rank among public benefactors. High upon that illustrious roll will his name be placed, and there will it remain while oceans divide, and telegraphs unite, mankind." The memory of such an achievement the world should not let die. The story of its varied fortunes reads like a tale of adventure. From the beginning it was a series of battles, fighting against the elements and against the unbelief of men. This long struggle the new generation may forget, profiting by the result, but thinking little of the means by which it was attained. What toil of hand and brain had gone before; what days and nights of watching and weariness; how often hope deferred had made the heart sick: how year after year had dragged on, and seen the end still afar off – all that is dimly remembered, even by those who reap the fruits of victory. And yet in the history of human achievements, it is necessary to trace these beginnings step by step, if we would learn the lesson they teach, that it is only out of heroic patience and perseverance that anything truly great is born.

Twelve years of unceasing toil was the price the Atlantic Telegraph cost its projector; and not years lighted up by the assurance of success, but that were often darkened with despair: years in which he was restlessly crossing and recrossing the ocean, only to find on either side, worse than storms and tempests, an incredulity which sneered at every failure, and derided the attempt as a delusion and a dream. Against such discouragements nothing could prevail but that faith, or fanaticism, which, believing the incredible, achieves the impossible. Such a tale, apart from the results, is in itself a lesson and an inspiration.

In attempting to chronicle all this, the relation of the writer to the prime mover has given him facilities for obtaining the materials of an authentic history; but he trusts that it will not lead him to overstep the limits of modesty. Standing by a new-made grave, he has no wish to indulge in undue praise even of the beloved dead. Enough for him is it to unroll the canvas on which the chief actor stands forth as the conspicuous figure. But in a work of such magnitude there are many actors, and there is glory enough for all; and it is a sacred duty to the dead to recognize, as he did, what was due to the brave companions in arms, who stood by him in disaster and defeat; who believed in him even when his own countrymen doubted and despaired; and furnished anew men and money and ships for the final conquest of the sea. If history records that the enterprise of the Atlantic Telegraph owed its inception to the faith and daring of an American, it will also record that all his ardor and activity would have been of no avail but for the science and seamanship, the capital and the undaunted courage, of England. But when all these conditions were supplied, it is the testimony of Englishmen themselves that his was the spirit within the wheels that made them revolve; that it was his intense vitality that infused itself into a great organization, and made the dream of science the reality of the world. This is not to his honor alone: it is a matter of national pride; and Americans may be pardoned if, in the year in which they celebrate the discovery of the continent, they recall that it was one of their countrymen whom the Great Commoner of England, John Bright, pronounced "the Columbus of our time, who, after no less than forty voyages across the Atlantic in pursuit of the great aim of his life, had at length by his cable moored the New World close alongside the Old." How the miracle was wrought, it is the design of these pages to tell.

CHAPTER I.

THE BARRIER OF THE SEA

When Columbus sailed from the shores of Spain, it was not in search of a New World, but only to find a nearer path to the East. He sought a western passage to India. He had adopted a traditionary belief that the earth was round; but he did not once dream of another continent than the three which had been the ancient abodes of the human race – Europe, Asia, and Africa. All the rest was the great deep. The Florentine sage Toscanelli, from his knowledge of the world so far as then discovered, had made a chart, on which the eastern coast of Asia was represented as lying opposite to the western coast of both Europe and Africa. Accepting this theory, Columbus reasoned that he could sail direct from Spain to India. No intervening continent existed even in his imagination. Even after he had crossed the Atlantic, and descried the green woods of San Salvador rising out of the western seas, he thought he saw before him one of the islands of the Asiatic coast. Cuba he believed was a part of the mainland of India; Hayti was the Ophir of King Solomon; and when, on a later voyage, he came to the broad mouth of the Orinoco, and saw it pouring its mighty flood into the Atlantic, he rejoiced that he had found the great river Gihon, which had its rise in the garden of Eden! Even to the hour of his death, he remained ignorant of the real extent of his magnificent discovery. It was reserved to later times to lift the curtain fully from the world of waters; to reveal the true magnitude of the globe; and to unite the distant hemispheres by ties such as the great discoverer never knew.

It is hard to imagine the darkness and the terror which then hung over the face of the deep. The ocean to the west was a Mare Tenebrosum – a Sea of Darkness, into which only the boldest voyagers dared to venture. Columbus was the most successful navigator of his time. He had made voyages to the Western Islands, to Madeira and the Canaries, to Iceland on the north, and to the Portuguese settlements in Africa. But when he came to cross the sea, he had to grope his way almost blindly. But a few rays of knowledge glimmered, like stars, on the pathless waters. When he sailed on his voyage of discovery, he directed his course, first to the Canaries, which was a sort of outstation for the navigators of those times, as the last place at which they could take in supplies; and beyond which they were venturing into unknown seas. Here he turned to the west, though inclining southward toward the tropics (for even the great discoverers of that day, in their search for new realms to conquer, were not above the consideration of riches as well as honor, and somehow associated gems and gold with torrid climes), and bore away for India!

From this route taken by the great navigator, he crossed the ocean in its widest part. Had he, instead, followed the track of the Northmen, who crept around from Iceland to Greenland and Labrador; or had he sailed straight to the Azores, and then borne away to the north-west, he would much sooner have descried land from the mast-head. But steering in darkness, he crossed the Atlantic where it is broadest and deepest; where, as submarine explorers have since shown, it rolls over mountains, lofty as the Alps and the Himalayas, which lie buried beneath the surface of the deep. But farther north the two continents, so widely sundered, incline toward each other, as if inviting that closer relation and freer intercourse which the fulness of time was to bring.

As the island of Newfoundland is to stand in the foreground of our story, we observe on the map its salient geographical position. It holds the same relation to America that Ireland does to Europe. Stretching far out into the Atlantic, it is the vanguard of the western continent, or rather the signal-tower from which the New World may speak to the Old.

And yet, though large as England, and so near our coast, few Americans ever see it, as it lies out of the track of European commerce. Our ships, though they skirt the Banks of Newfoundland, pass to the south, and get but occasional glimpses of the headlands. Even what is seen gives the country rather an ill reputation. It has a rockbound coast, around which hang perpetual fogs and mists, through which great icebergs drift slowly down, like huge phantoms of the deep, gliding away to be dissolved by the warm breath of the Gulf Stream: dangers that warn the voyager away from such a sea and shore.

Sailing west from Cape Race, and making the circuit of the island as far as the Straits of Belle Isle, one is often reminded of the most northern peninsula of Europe. The rocky shores are indented with numerous bays, reaching far up into the land, like the fiords along the coast of Norway; while the large herds of Caribou deer, that are seen feeding on the hills, might easily be mistaken for the flocks of reindeer that browse on the pastures and drink of the mountain torrents of ancient Scandinavia.

The interior of the island is little known. Not only is it uninhabited, it is almost unexplored, a boundless waste of rock and moor, where vast forests stretch out their unbroken solitudes, and the wild bird utters its lonely cry. Bears and wolves roam on the mountains. Especially common is the large and fierce black wolf; while of the smaller animals, whose skins furnish material for the fur-trade, such as martins and foxes, there is the greatest abundance. But from all pests of the serpent tribe, Newfoundland is as free as Ireland, which was delivered by the prayers of St. Patrick. There is not a snake or a frog or a toad in the island!

Yet, even in this ruggedness of nature, there is a wild beauty, which only needs to be "clothed upon" by the hand of man. Newfoundland, in many of its features, is not unlike Scotland, even in its most desolate portions, where the rocky surface of the country, covered with thick moss, reminds the emigrant Scot of the heather on his native moors. In the interior are lakes as long as Loch Lomond, and mountains as lofty as Ben Lomond and Ben Nevis. There are passes as wild as the Vale of Glencoe, where one might feel that he is in the heart of the Highlands, while the roar of the torrents yet more vividly recalls the

Yet in all this there is nothing to repel human habitation. By the hand of industry, these wild moors might be transformed into fruitful fields. We think it a very cold country, where winter reigns over half the year, as in Greenland; yet it is not so far north as Scotland, nor is its climate more inhospitable. It only needs the same population, the same hardy toil: and the same verdure would creep up its hill-sides, which now makes green and beautiful the loneliest of Scottish glens.

But at present the country is a terra incognita. In the interior there are no towns and no roads. As yet almost the whole wealth of the island is drawn from the sea. Its chief trade is its fisheries, and the only places of importance are a few small towns, chiefly on the eastern side, which have grown up around the trading posts. Besides these, the only settlements are the fishermen's huts scattered along the coast. Hence the bishop of the island, when he would make his annual visit to his scattered flock, is obliged to sail around his diocese in his yacht, since even on horseback it would not be possible to make his way through the dense forests to the remote parts of the island. This first suggested the idea of cutting across the island a nearer way, not only for internal intercourse, but for those who were passing to and fro on the sea.

It was in one of these excursions around the coast that the good Bishop Mullock, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Newfoundland, when visiting the western portion of his diocese, lying one day becalmed in his yacht, in sight of Cape North, the extreme point of the province of Cape Breton, bethought himself how his poor neglected island might be benefited by being taken into the track of communication between Europe and America. He saw how nature had provided an easy approach to the mainland on the west. About sixty miles from Cape Ray stretched the long island of Cape Breton, while, as a stepping-stone, the little island of St. Paul's lay between. So much did it weigh upon his mind that, as soon as he got back to St. John's, he wrote a letter to one of the papers on the subject. As this was the first suggestion of a telegraph across Newfoundland, his letter is here given in full:

To the Editor of the Courier:

Sir: I regret to find that, in every plan for transatlantic communication, Halifax is always mentioned, and the natural capabilities of Newfoundland entirely overlooked. This has been deeply impressed on my mind by the communication I read in your paper of Saturday last, regarding telegraphic communication between England and Ireland, in which it is said that the nearest telegraphic station on the American side is Halifax, twenty-one hundred and fifty-five miles from the west of Ireland. Now would it not be well to call the attention of England and America to the extraordinary capabilities of St. John's, as the nearest telegraphic point? It is an Atlantic port, lying, I may say, in the track of the ocean steamers, and by establishing it as the American telegraphic station, news could be communicated to the whole American continent forty-eight hours, at least, sooner than by any other route. But how will this be accomplished? Just look at the map of Newfoundland and Cape Breton. From St. John's to Cape Ray there is no difficulty in establishing a line passing near Holy-Rood along the neck of land connecting Trinity and Placentia Bays, and thence in a direction due west to the Cape. You have then about forty-one to forty-five miles of sea to St. Paul's Island, with deep soundings of one hundred fathoms, so that the electric cable will be perfectly safe from icebergs. Thence to Cape North, in Cape Breton, is little more than twelve miles. Thus it is not only practicable to bring America two days nearer to Europe by this route, but should the telegraphic communication between England and Ireland, sixty-two miles, be realized, it presents not the least difficulty. Of course, we in Newfoundland will have nothing to do with the erection, working, and maintenance of the telegraph; but I suppose our Government will give every facility to the company, either English or American, who will undertake it, as it will be an incalculable advantage to this country. I hope the day is not far distant when St. John's will be the first link in the electric chain which will unite the Old World and the New.

St. John's, November 8, 1850.

This suggestion came at the right moment, since it quickened, if it did not originate, the first attempt to link the island of Newfoundland with the mainland of America. For about the same time, the attention of Mr. Frederick N. Gisborne, a telegraph operator, was attracted to a similar project. Being a man of great quickness of mind, he instantly saw the importance of such a work, and took hold of it with enthusiasm. It might easily occur to him without suggestion from any source. He had had much experience in telegraphs, and was then engaged in constructing a telegraph line in Nova Scotia. Whether, therefore, the idea was first with him or with the bishop, is of little consequence. It might occur at the same time to two intelligent minds, and show the sagacity of both.

But having taken hold of this idea, Mr. Gisborne pursued it with indomitable resolution. As the labors of this gentleman were most important in the beginning of this work, it is a pleasure to recognize his untiring zeal and energy. In assurance of this we could have no higher authority than the following from the late Mr. E. M. Archibald, who was at the time Attorney-General of Newfoundland, and afterwards for many years British Consul at New York:

"It was during the winter of 1849-50, that Mr. Gisborne, who had been, as an engineer, engaged in extending the electric telegraph through Lower Canada and New Brunswick to Halifax, Nova Scotia, conceived the project of a telegraph to connect St. John's, the most easterly port of America, with the main continent. The importance of the geographical position of Newfoundland, in the event of a telegraph ever being carried across the Atlantic, was about the same time promulgated by Dr. Mullock, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Newfoundland, in a St. John's newspaper.

"In the spring of the following year (1851), Mr. Gisborne visited Newfoundland, appeared before the Legislature, then in session, and explained the details of his plan, which was an overland line from St. John's to Cape Ray, nearly four hundred miles in length, and (the submarine cable between Dover and Calais not having then been laid) a communication between Cape Ray and Cape Breton by steamer and carrier-pigeons, eventually, it was hoped, by a submarine cable across the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The Legislature encouraged the project, granted £500 sterling to enable Mr. Gisborne to make an exploratory survey of the proposed line to Cape Ray, and passed an act authorizing its construction, with certain privileges, and the appointment of commissioners for the purpose of carrying it out. Upon this, Mr. Gisborne, who was then the chief officer of the Nova Scotia Telegraph Company, returned to that province, resigned his situation, and devoted himself to the project of the Newfoundland telegraph. Having organized a local company for the purpose of constructing the first telegraph line in the island, from St. John's to Carbonear, a distance of sixty miles, he, on the fourth of September, set out upon the arduous expedition of a survey of the proposed line to Cape Ray, which occupied upward of three months, during which time himself and his party suffered severe privations, and narrowly escaped starvation, having to traverse the most rugged and hitherto unexplored part of the island.1 On his return, having reported to the Legislature favorably of the project, and furnished estimates of the cost, he determined to proceed to New York, to obtain assistance to carry it out… Mr. Gisborne returned to St. John's in the spring of 1852, when, at his instance, an act, incorporating himself (his being the only name mentioned in it) and such others as might become shareholders in a company, to be called the Newfoundland Electric Telegraph Company, was passed, granting an exclusive right to erect telegraphs in Newfoundland for thirty years, with certain concessions of land, by way of encouragement, to be granted upon the completion of the telegraph from St. John's to Cape Ray. Mr. Gisborne then returned to New York, where he organized, under this charter, a company, of which Mr. Tebbets and Mr. Holbrook2 were prominent members, made his financial arrangements with them, and proceeded to England to contract for the cable from Cape Ray to Prince Edward Island, and from thence to the mainland. Returning in the autumn, he proceeded in a small steamer, in November of that year, 1852, to stretch the first submarine cable, of any length, in America, across the Northumberland Strait from Prince Edward Island to New Brunswick, which cable, however, was shortly afterward broken, and a new one was subsequently laid down by the New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company. In the spring of the following year, 1853, Mr. Gisborne set vigorously to work to complete his favorite project of the line (which he intended should be chiefly underground) from St. John's to Cape Ray. He had constructed some thirty or forty miles of road, and was proceeding with every prospect of success, when, most unexpectedly, those of the company who were to furnish the needful funds dishonored his bills, and brought his operations to a sudden termination. He and the creditors of the company were for several months buoyed up with promises of forthcoming means from his New York allies, which promises were finally entirely unfulfilled; and Gisborne, being the only ostensible party, was sued and prosecuted on all sides, stripped of his whole property, and himself arrested to answer the claims of the creditors of the company. He cheerfully and honorably gave up every thing he possessed, and did his utmost to relieve the severe distress in which the poor laborers on the line had been involved."

This is a testimony most honorable to the engineer who first led the way through a pathless wilderness. But this Newfoundland scheme is not to be confounded with that of the Atlantic Telegraph, which did not come into existence until a year or two later. The latter was not at all included in the former. Indeed, Mr. Gisborne himself says, in a letter referring to his original project: "My plans were to run a subterranean line from Cape Race to Cape Ray, fly carrier-pigeons and run boats across the Straits of Northumberland to Cape Breton, and thence by overland lines convey the news to New York." He adds however: "Meanwhile Mr. Brett's experimental cable between Dover and Calais having proved successful, I set forth in my report, [which appeared a year after his first proposal], that 'carrier-pigeons and boats would be required only until such time as the experiments then making in England with submarine cables should warrant a similar attempt between Cape Ray and Cape Breton.'" But nowhere in his report does he allude to the possibility of ever spanning the mighty gulf of the Atlantic.

But several years after, when the temporary success of the Atlantic Telegraph gave a name to everybody connected with it, he or his friends seemed not unwilling to have it supposed that this was embraced in the original scheme. When asked why he did not publish his large design to the world, he answered: "Because I was looked upon as a wild visionary by my friends, and pronounced a fool by my relatives for resigning a lucrative government appointment in favor of such a laborious speculation as the Newfoundland connection. Now had I coupled it at that time with an Atlantic line, all confidence in the prior undertaking would have been destroyed, and my object defeated." This may have been a reason for not announcing such a project to the public, but not for withholding it from his friends. A man can hardly lay claim to that which he holds in such absolute reserve.

However, whether he ever entertained the idea of such a project, is not a matter of the slightest consequence to the public, nor even to his own reputation. Ten years before Professor Morse had expressed, not a dreamer's fancy, but a deliberate conviction, founded on scientific experiments, that "a telegraphic communication might with certainty be established across the Atlantic Ocean;" so that the idea was not original with Mr. Gisborne, any more than with others who were eager to appropriate it.

It is a part of the history of great enterprises, that the moment one succeeds, a host spring up to claim the honor. Thus when, in 1858, the Atlantic Telegraph seemed to be a success, the public, knowing well who had borne the brunt and burden of the undertaking, awarded him the praise which he so well deserved; but instantly there were other Richmonds in the field. Those who had had no part in the labor, at least claimed to have originated the idea! Of course, these many claims destroy each other. But after all, to raise such a point at all is the merest trifling. The question is not who first had the "idea," but who took hold of the enterprise as a practical thing; who grappled with the gigantic difficulties of the undertaking, and fought the battle through to victory.

As to Mr. Gisborne, his activity in the beginning of the Newfoundland telegraph is a matter of history. In that preliminary work, he bore an honorable part, and acquired a title to respect, of which he cannot be deprived. All honor to him for his enterprise, his courage, and his perseverance!

But for the company of which he was the father, which he had got up with so much toil, it lived but a few months, when it became involved in debt some fifty thousand dollars, chiefly to laborers on the line, and ended its existence by an ignominious failure. The concern was bankrupt, and it was plain that, if the work was not to be finally abandoned, it must be taken up by stronger hands.

CHAPTER II.

CAN THE OCEAN BE SPANNED?

Mr. Gisborne left Halifax and came to New York in January, 1854. Here he took counsel with his friend Tebbets and others; but they could give him no relief. It was while in this state of suspense that he met, at the Astor House, Mr. Matthew D. Field, an engineer who had been engaged in building railroads and suspension bridges at the South and West. Mr. Field listened to his story with interest, and engaged to speak of it to his brother, Cyrus W. Field,3 a merchant of New York, who had retired from business the year before, and had spent six months in travelling over the mountains of South America, from which he had lately returned. Accordingly, he introduced the subject, but found his brother disinclined to embark in any new undertaking. Though still a young man, his life had been for many years one of incessant devotion to business. He had accumulated an ample fortune, and was not disposed to renew the cares, the anxieties, and the fatigues of his former life. But listening to the details of a scheme which had in it much to excite interest, and which by its very difficulty stimulated the spirit of enterprise, he at length consented to see Mr. Gisborne, and invited him to his house. Accordingly he came, and spent an evening describing the route of his proposed telegraph, and the points it was to connect. After he 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 might be carried further still, and be made to span the Atlantic Ocean. The idea was not original with him, though he was to carry it out. It was indeed new to him; but it had long been a matter of speculation with scientific minds, though their theories had never attracted his attention. But once he had grasped the idea, it took strong hold of his imagination. Had the Newfoundland scheme stood alone, he would never have undertaken it. He cared little about shortening communication with Europe by a day or two, by relays of boats and carrier-pigeons. But it was the hope of further and grander results that inspired him to enter on a work of which no man could foresee the end.