USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume III, Pt. 2 > Part 21
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Senate passed the House bill appropriating $30,000 for the erection of a line between Washington and Baltimore. This line was success- . fully put in operation the following year. A brief glance at the estab- lishment of commercial telegraphy in the United States and Canada will be found in the sketch which follows. Professor Morse made several visits to Europe subsequent to the successful issue of his ex- periments. He obtained a patent in France, which did not prove valuable, but was refused one in England, the question of priority being at issue. He received many honors, including knighthood, and numerous medals. He was entertained by the King of Denmark and by the Emperor of Russia. Subsequently the chief emperors of Europe presented him a purse of 400,000 francs. Morse was interested in the original Atlantic cable project, and visited Europe in 1857 in the
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interest of the Atlantic Telegraph Company, to which he sustained the official relation of electrician. He met Daguerre during one of his visits abroad, and to Morse also belongs the credit of constructing a camera and taking the first sun picture in the United States.
WOOD, ORRIN SQUIRE, was prominently connected with the development of commercial telegraphy in the United States and Can- ada. Ezra Cornell, founder of Cornell University, and the associate of Professor Samuel F. B. Morse in the introduction of the telegraph, was a brother-in-law of Mr. Wood, and through this connection the latter went to Washington in 1844, and was the first whom Professor Morse instructed in the operation of his new invention. The experi- mental line authorized by the Government between Washington and
Baltimore was erected during this year, and Mr. Wood assisted in the work of its practical operation. The following year he accompanied Professor Morse to New York City, and was the operator in the first telegraphic exhibition here, on a line erected on Broadway, between Exchange Place and Grand Street. A company was organized to build a. line from New York to Philadel- phia, but this project failed through inability to stretch a line across the Hudson which would permit the passage of ships beneath it. The feasibility of submarine telegraphy had not yet been dem- onstrated. Mr. Cornell and Mr. ORRIN SQUIRE WOOD. Wood then erected an exhibition wire from the railroad station at Trica, N. Y., to the State Fair Grounds, resulting in the organization of a company to creet lines between New York City and Buffalo, with intermediate offices at Troy, Utica. Syracuse. Auburn, and Rochester. Meantime, Henry Wells, of express fame, had erected wires between Buffalo and Lockport, and, in the fall of 1845, Mr. Wood put this line in operation. In January, 1846, the first com- . pleted section of the New York and Buffalo line, between Albany and Utica, was put in operation by Mr. Wood. At Utica he also organized and taught the first class in telegraphy, to equip operators for this line. He opened the different offices as the sections were com- pleted. With this line more than two offices were worked success- fully in one circuit for the first time. Mr. Wood's brother subsequently became superintendent of the line. In the fall of 1846 the line was
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completed to New York City, Mr. Wood then opening the first tele- graph office for business in New York. He remained in charge of this office until March, 1847, when he accepted his appointment as superintendent by the newly organized Montreal Telegraph Company. At this time Professor Morse gave him a letter, in the course of which he said : " You were the first pupil who was regularly initiated in the matter of operating my telegraph." For eighteen years Mr. Wood remained superintendent of the Montreal Telegraph Company, and, during this period, all of the successful commercial telegraph lines in Canada were built under his supervision, with nearly all the rail- way lines. By Mr. Wood's advice, from the beginning the Montreal Company used galvanized-iron wire in place of copper wire. This company began to pay dividends almost from the start, and was the first company in the world to do so. Mr. Wood supported Cyrus W. field in the project of a telegraphic cable across the Atlantic, and was a stockholder in the original Atlantic Telegraphic Company. The only dispatch which passed over the first cable between England and Canada was received by him and delivered to the commander of the British forces at Montreal. When the cable parted he joined Mr. Field in a journey through the lower Canadian provinces. In 1860, Mr. Wood visited England with Sir Hugh Allen and Postmaster- General Smith to select an Irish port for landing the Canadian mails, and to urge government aid in England for a new Atlantic cable. In this year he also aided Governor John A. King and other eminent New Yorkers, who had come to Montreal to invite the Prince of Wales to visit New York. With Z. G. Simmons, of Kenosha, Wis., Mr. Wood, in 1863, purchased most of the stock of the telegraphic companies in the Northwestern States. Three years later he resigned from the Montreal Company and gave all his attention to the building up of a great system in the wheat region. In 1SS1 this system was profitably disposed of to Jay Gould by a ninety-nine-year lease. In 1889, Mr. Wood joined with Mr. Simmons in building a railroad to the top of Pike's Peak. During the past twelve years he has resided on Staten Island, where he has been active in connection with rapid transit. During the last six years he has been President of the S. R. Smith Infirmary, while he has been one of its trustees for a still longer period. He was born in Sherburne, N. Y., December 14, 1817, and, upon the completion of his education. and prior to his connection with the tele- graph, was for two years engaged as a civil engineer on the New York State canals. Through his father, Benjamin Wood, a native of Seitu- ate, R. I., he descends from William Wood, who settled in Concord, Mass., in 1634. Through his mother, a daughter of Nicholas Bone- steel, of Montgomery County, New York, he descends from Nicholas Bonesteel, who came from Holland to Rhinebeck, N. Y., in 1720. Mr. Wood married, in 1849, a daughter of William Forbes, of Montreal. She died in 1869. In 1878 he married the present Mrs. Wood, a daugh-
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ter of Nelson Lindsey, of Orange, N. J. His three children were all by his first wife-Mrs. W. D. Sutherland, of Montreal; IT. Bolton Wood, engaged in business in Boston, and a daughter, who died at Colorado Springs in 1889.
FIELD, CYRUS WEST, is remembered for his zeal and energy in carrying to a successful issue the project of the laying of a telegraphic cable across the bed of the ocean. He was born in Stockbridge, Mass., November 30, 1819, and died at Irvington-on-the-Hudson, July 12, 1892. The son of an able clergyman, Dr. David Dudley Field, he was also a brother of the late David Dudley Field, the eminent New York lawyer, and of Stephen M. Field, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Cyrus W. Field attended the New York public schools up to the age of fifteen, and then entered a mercantile house. Ile subsequently became head of this establishment, while, in 1853, he retired from business with a large fortune. Soon after this he became interested in the problem of transatlantic telegraphic communication. The suggestion of this was not original with Field, having come from Lieutenant Matthew Fontaine Maury, author of the " Physical Geography of the Sea," and for many years superintend- ent of the National Observatory at Washing- ton. The latter had carefully sounded the Atlantic along the path of commerce between America and Europe, and had announced the yours i Fuld. existence of a great submarine plateau which would make the laying of a telegraphic cable feasible. It remained for Mr. Field to carry out this suggestion. In 1854 the latter se- cured from the Newfoundland Legislature a charter granting exclu- sive rights for fifty years for a telegraph from Europe to America by way of Newfoundland. During the next three years the overland wires were erected, together with a small cable across the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The attempt to lay this cable in 1853 failed, but success was realized the following year. In 1856, Mr. Field organized the Atlantic Telegraph Company. The first attempt to lay the Atlantic cable, in 1857, failed, the cable parting. Another attempt, in 1858. also failed. But in August. 1858, a cable was laid and operated for à short time. After a little, however, it refused to work. Nothing more was done until the close of the Civil War. In 1865 the attempt was made to lay a new cable, but the wire again parted. But in 1866 another cable was successfully laid, while the wire which had parted in 1865 was fished up and spliced. Mr. Field received the thanks of Congress, and in 1867 the highest honor from the French Exposition. Later in life he invested his fortune in Manhattan Elevated stock, hav-
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ing Jay Gould as his coadjutor, and employing all his securities to arti- ficially boom the stock of this road, against Gould's advice, was caught in a flurry. His loss was great, and, but for the generous assistance of Gould, his entire fortune would have been swept away.
COOPER, PETER (see steel engraving, frontispiece of Volume I. of this work), founder of the Cooper Institute in this city, in 1854, was. born in New York City, February 12, 1791, and died here April 4, 1883. ITis father, a hatmaker, had been a Revolutionary soldier, as had been his maternal grandfather, James Campbell, while the latter was also an alderman of New York. Peter Cooper enjoyed very little attend- ance at school, and was apprenticed to a coachmaker. He was, suc- cessively, a manufacturer of patent machines for shearing cloth, a cabinetmaker, and a grocer. He amassed a considerable fortune as a manufacturer of glue and oils, having taken a lease of a glue factory for twenty-one years. At the expiration of this time he erected a factory of his own. In 1828 he became an iron founder, erecting the Canton Iron Works at Baltimore. Here he built, in 1830, the first
Hle dis- locomotive engine in America, being himself its designer. posed of the Baltimore works and acquired a similar plant in New York City. Here he established a rolling-mill and a wire factory. He was the first man to successfully employ anthracite coal in pud- dling iron. In 1845 he removed his establishment to Trenton, N. J., where he had at one time the largest rolling-mill in the United States. He took great interest in the development of commercial telegraphy. He organized the New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company, and was its President during the eighteen years prior to its consolidation with other lines. Next to Cyrus W. Field he was prob- ably the most prominent supporter of the project of the Atlantic tele- graphic cable. He was a director of the original Atlantic Telegraph Company. He was at one time President of the American Telegraph Company, and was also President of the North American Telegraph Association, which controlled two-thirds of the lines in the United States. He was a member of the New York Common Council, was a trustee of the Public School Society, and was a member of the New York Board of Education. At the cost of about a million dollars he erected and permanently endowed the Cooper Institute, with its free public library and its free instruction in the practical and the fine arts. He was the candidate of the labor organizations for Mayor of New York City, and in 1876 was the candidate of the Greenback party for President of the United States.
WATTS, JOHN, born in New York City, April 5, 1715, was one of the most prominent citizens of New York. He was one of the founders of the New York Society Library in 1753, being the first incorporator mentioned in the charter of this institution. He long served as one
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of its trustees. He was also a founder and the first President of the New York Hospital (1770-1784). He was one of the founders of the New York Merchants' Exchange, and was principally active in raising the subscription for the erection of its building in 1752. His education was completed abroad, and he was bred to the law, becoming one of the most eminent practitioners in New York. In 1752 and sub- sequent years he was a member of the New York Assembly. From 1758 until the Revo- lution he was a member of the King's Coun- cil. In 1762-63 he was Attorney-General of New York by appointment of Governor Monckton. He was an active opponent of the Stamp Act of 1764, and influential in secur- ing its repeal. He was married, in July, 1742. DE PEYSTER AND WATTS ARMS. to Ann de Lancey, sister of James de Lancey, Lieutenant-Governor of New York. In ad- dition to his elegant town house, on Broad- way, opposite Bowling Green, Mr. Watts had a large country-place which embraced nearly all of what is now the Nineteenth and Twenty- second wards of the City of New York, together with a part of the Eighteenth Ward. This place was named Rose Hill, in honor of the ancestral seat near Edinburgh. Scotland. Mr. Watts was a loyal- ist during the Revolution, and, on this account, was forced to re- tire to England, while all his property here was confiscated. His wife died of a broken heart in New York, while he died, an exile and impoverished, in Wales. He was the choice of the King for Acting Governor of New York in case the Revolution failed. One of his daughters became the wife of the eleventh Earl of Cassilis. He was himself the son of Robert Watts, or Watt, who was born at his father's place, Rose Hill, - Scotland, in 1680, came to New York City in 1710, and died here JOHN WATTS. September 21, 1750. He married Mary, daughter of William Nicoll, of New York City and Islip, L. I., and his wife, Anne, daughter of Jeremiah Van Rensselaer and Maria Van Cortlandt. Robert Watt was, in turn, the son of John Watt, of Rose Hill, Scotland, who was born about 1650, and in 1696 was
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appointed Commissioner of Supply for the Shire of Edinburgh. One of his daughters became the wife of Sir Walter Riddel, Baronet. The father of this John Watt, of Rose Hill, Adam Watt, was appointed writer to his Majesty's signet in 1661, and also held the judicial posi- tion of Commissary of Kirkcudbright.
WATTS, JOHN, JR., son of Hon. John Watts and Anne de Lancey, was born in New York City, August 27, 1749, and died here, Septem- ber 3, 1836. Like his father, he was carefully educated, being bred to the law. He was appointed Recorder of New York City in 1774, when twenty-five years of age, and held this office until 1777, being the last to fill it under commission from the King. For several years a member of the New York Assembly, he was its Speaker from 1791 to 1794. From 1793 to 1795 he was a member of Congress. In 1806 he became First Judge of Westchester County, New York. He was one of the founders of the Tontine in 1794. He was also one of the founders of the New York Dispensary, while he was its President from 1821 to 1836. He was also the founder and endower of the Leake and Watts Orphan House in the .City of New York. One of his sons, Major Robert Watts, a soldier in the War of 1812, inherited a fortune of a million dollars or more from John George Leake, of New York, the testa- tor stipulating that this fortune should be used in founding an orphan house in case Major Robert Watts pre-de- ceased him. This was not the case. . 1 But in 1830, Major Watts died unmar- ried. His father and heir, John Watts, Jr., instead of accepting the Leake's fortune, which thus became his. gave it for the founding of the Leake and Watts Orphan House. The wife of the latter was Jane, daughter of Peter de Lanrey, of West- chester County, New York, and granddaughter of Lieutenant-Gover- nor Cadwalader Colden. Another son of Hon. John Watts, Jr., George Watts, was also a soldier in the War of 1812, distinguishing himself at the battle of Chippewa, and by his bravery in saving the life of General Winfield Scott, when the latter was about to be captured by Indians. One of the daughters of John Watts, Jr., married Philip Kearny, and was the mother of Major-General Philip Kearny of the
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Civil War. Another daughter, Mary Justina, married the late LIon. Frederic de Peyster, of this city, and had an only child-the present Major-General John Watts de Peyster. The latter erected the bronze statue of his grandfather, Hon. John Watts, Jr., which now stands in Trinity Churchyard. The accompanying cut is from a photograph of this statue.
CUSHMAN, DON ALONZO, engaged in business in Cooperstown. N. Y., in 1805, in 1810 removed to New York City, organized in 1815, and became senior partner of the mercantile firm of Cushman & Fal- coner, subsequently D. A. Cushman & Company, and remained at its head until his retirement in 1855. From the latter date until his death, in 1875, he developed his large real estate interests in the sec- tion of the city which had been Chelsea village, established his own residence on Ninth Avenue, opposite the General Theological Semin- ary, and was chiefly instrumental in making that section one of the fashionable quarters of New York. He was a lineal descendant of Elder Thomas Cushman, of Plymouth Colony; was born in Covington, Ky., October 1, 1792, and was reared and educated in Otsego County, New York.
CUSHMAN, E. HOLBROOK. for many years a merchant in New York City, since his retirement from active mercantile pursuits has been occupied in the management of the large city real estate inter- ests inherited from his father, the late Don Alonzo Cushman. He was born in New York in 1832, and is a member of the New York Athletic and Mendelssohn Glee clubs. Through his mother he is the grand- son of Peter Ritter, of New York City. The paternal line descends from Robert Cushman, of Kent, England, who chartered the May- flower, was Assistant Governor of the Company of Pilgrims, but re- mained behind to manage the finances in England. He visited Ply- mouth in 1621, but returned to England, and died there in 1625. Ilis only son, Thomas Cushman, settled at Plymouth, however, married Mary, daughter of Isaac Allerton, and in 1649 succeeded Elder Brew- ster as ruling elder of the church.
BOOTH, EDWIN THOMAS, throughout the greater part of his professional life was easily the leading actor in America, while he is generally conceded to be the foremost figure in the history of the . American stage. Irving, the famous English actor, is probably the only one of the contemporary tragedians who would cause hesitation in according to Booth the supremacy among actors of all nations of his day. The parts which Booth rendered with the greatest success, and to which he confined himself during his later years, were Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, lago, King Lear, Wolsey, Richard III., Richelieu, Shylock, Benedick, Petruchio, Richard II., Brutus, Bertuccio, Ruy
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Blas, and Cæsar de Bazan. His first appearance in New York City was as Wilford, in " The Iron Chest," in the National Theater, Chat- ham Street, September 27, 1850. In the following year, and in the same theater, he took the part of Richard III. for the first time, in place of his father, the late Junius Brutus Booth, who had suddenly been taken ill. His rendition of the part, considering that he was but eighteen years of age at the time, was remarkably successful. His first appearance upon the stage had been at the Boston Museum, September 10, 1849, where he took the part of Tressil in Shakespeare's " Richard III.," as a member of his father's company. From 1852 to 1856 he played in California and Australia, attracting much atten- tion by his personations of Richard III., Hamlet, Macbeth, and Shy- lock. In 1856 he also appeared in Baltimore and other Southern cities. But his success in Boston,
. where he appeared as Sir Giles Overreach in " A New Way to Pay Old Debts," in April, 1857, marked the real recognition by the public that a new star had arisen upon the theatrical horizon. He again presented " Richard III." in New York, May 14, 1857, at Burton's Metropolitan Theater, while he ap- peared at the same place in his va- rious rôles in the following August, firmly establishing his reputation as a coming man. In 1860 and 1861 he was favorably received in London, Liverpool, and Manchester. where he appeared as Sir Giles Overreach, Shylock, and Richelieu. From December 26, 1862, to March EDWIN THOMAS BOOTH. 23. 1867. he was associated with his brother-in-law, John S. Clarke, and another, in the management of the Winter Garden Theater in New York City, formerly Burton's Metropolitan Theater. Here he presented the most brilliant per- formances of the great tragedies of Shakespeare and others which this city had witnessed. His run of " Hamlet" for one hundred consecutive nights, then unparalleled, won for him the presentation of a gold medal by a number of the most prominent citizens of the city. In 1864 he appeared as Romeo in " Romeo and Juliet " for the benefit of a monument to Shakespeare in Central Park. While the assassination of Lincoln drove Booth from the stage for a short time, -a retirement which he intended should be permanent,-the mani- festation of public sympathy, coupled with the fact that the manage-
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ment of the theater ceased to be profitable during his absence from the footlights, constrained him to resume. But in March, 1867, the house was destroyed by fire. In 1863, Booth and his colleagues had also assumed the management of the Walnut Street Theater of Phila- delphia, which they continued to control until March, 1870. In the spring of 1868 the erection of a new theater was begun in New York City, at the southeast corner of Twenty-third Street and Sixth Ave- nuc, while on February 3, 1869, Booth opened the house with a pro- duction of " Romeo and Juliet." This house, known as Booth's The- ater, was managed by the great actor until the spring of 1874, and by others, until it was torn down in 1882. A series of brilliant sea- sons marked Booth's control, his stock company containing many dis- tinguished actors, including Lawrence Barrett. While the receipts would have made a fortune for a manager with business ability, Booth was not an economical financier, and actually became bankrupt. In 1876 he made a triumphal tour of the Southern and Western States. and in 1880 and 1882 made visits to England, meeting with recognition. In the latter year he also visited Germany, and was enthusiastically received. An edition of his favorite plays, adapted for stage use by himself, was published in fifteen volumes (Boston, 1STT-TS), William Winter contributing introductions and notes. It is well known that the clubhouse of the Players' Club of this city, facing Gramercy Park, was a gift from Booth to the Club. While thus peculiarly identified with New York City, Edwin Booth was born in Bel Air, Md., November 13, 1833. The son of the gifted but eccen- tric Junius Brutus Booth, he was the grandson of Richard Booth, a silversmith of Bloomsbury, England. His mother, Mary Ann Holmes, was also a native of England. The eccentric character of the father, which was perpetuated and exaggerated so sadly in the case of John Wilkes Booth, undoubtedly was largely responsible for the peculiarly sensitive and gloomy spirit of Edwin Booth. And there was much in the career of the latter, which was too well cal- culated to deepen this oppression of mind and heart. The partial insanity and intemperance of his father cast its shadow. His first wife, Miss Mary Devlin, of Troy, N. Y., whom he married July 7, 1860, died February 21, 1863. By her he had his daughter and only child. Edwina, born in England, December 9, 1861. A still more appalling blow was the assassination of Lincoln by his brother. Under this stroke he would have abandoned the stage, had not financial neces- `sity forced him to continue. On June 7, 1869, he married Miss Mary Me Vicker, daughter of a Mr. Runion and stepdaughter of James IT. MeVicker, the actor and theatrical manager of Chicago. She died in 1881, without issue. The degree in which the tragedy in his own life contributed toward Booth's success in interpreting tragedy upon the stage it is difficult to determine. Investigation on this point would afford a theme of interesting, if painful. study.
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LITTLE, JOSEPH JAMES, head of the large printing establish- ment of J. J. Little & Company, which he founded in 1867, has been prominent in public life. He was among the one hundred represen- tative men of the city designated by Mayor Grace in 1885 to receive the remains of General Grant at Albany and accompany them to their resting place at Riverside. He was a member of the original committee to raise funds for the Grant monument. He was one of the appointees of Mayor Grant in 1889 to collect funds for the Johnstown sufferers. He was one of the New York Committee on the World's Fair. Appointed a member of the Board of Education, he did efficient work toward securing improvements in the schoolhouses in process of erection in the city. Resigning from the Board to take the seat in Congress to which he had been elected in 1891, his fellow-commis- sioners tendered him a dinner, an honor then without a precedent in this body. His election to Congress was remarkable in the fact that although four candidates were in the field. he received nearly sixty per cent. of the total vote. Born in Bristol, England, June 5, 1841, brought to the United States in 1846, his parents settling in Morris, Otsego County, N. Y. He was early apprenticed to learn the printer's trade, and soon after serving his time came to New York City, April 1, 1859. He soon became a foreman, and accumulated enough to start for himself in a modest way in 1867. He is a Trustee of the Amer- ican Institute and a Director of the Astor Place Bank, as well as President and Treasurer of J. J. Little & Company. Called out with the militia in the Civil War for three summer campaigns in defense of Washington, he rose to the rank of First Lieutenant. He was re-ap- pointed to the Board of Education by Mayor Van Wyck. and elected its. President.
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