Editing Cyrus W. Field (section)

==Midlife==
[[File:CyrusField3.jpg|thumb|upright=1.05|Cyrus Field, c. 1860|left]]
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]].<ref name="gotham675">{{cite gotham}} pp. 675–676</ref> In 1853, Field financed an expedition to South America with his artist friend [[Frederic Edwin Church]], during which they explored present-day [[Ecuador]], [[Colombia]], and [[Panama]]. They followed the route taken by [[Alexander von Humboldt]] over 50 years earlier.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Avery|first=Kevin|title=Church's Great Picture: The Heart of the Andes|url=https://archive.org/details/churchsgreatpict00aver|url-access=limited|publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art|year=1993|location=New York|page=[https://archive.org/details/churchsgreatpict00aver/page/n17 17]}}</ref> 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]].<ref name="Judson, I. F." /> 

Field turned his attention to [[telegraphy]] 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]], started the work, but failed due to the lack of capital. Later that year he, with [[Peter Cooper]], [[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 {{convert|400|mi|adj=on}} telegraph line connecting [[St. John's, Newfoundland]] with [[Nova Scotia]], coupling with telegraph lines from the U.S.<ref>Jane A. Stewart. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/42767473?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents Great Americans of the past:Cyrus West Field]. ''The Journal of Education'', Vol. 90, No. 18 (2254) (November 13, 1919), pp. 488–489.</ref> American investors took over Gisborne's venture and formed a new company called the [[New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company|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 .<ref>[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/cable/peopleevents/p_cabinet.html The Cable Cabinet], ''The Great Transatlantic Cable'', PBS</ref>

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]] to the Gulf Coast; the system was second only to [[Western Union]]'s.<ref name=gotham675 />
[[File:QueenVictoriaTelegramReduced.jpg|thumb|right|Congratulatory telegram to President Buchanan on the completion of the first Trans-Atlantic cable, 1858.]]
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]], utilizing a shallow submarine plateau that ran between [[Ireland]] and [[Newfoundland (island)|Newfoundland]].<ref name=gotham675 /> The cable was officially opened on August 16, 1858, when [[Queen Victoria]] sent President [[James Buchanan]] a message in [[Morse code]]. Although the jubilation at the feat was widespread,<ref name=gotham675 /> the cable itself was short-lived: it broke down three weeks afterward, and was not reconnected until 1866.<ref name=gotham675 /><ref>[http://www.atlantic-cable.com/Field/ History of the Atlantic Cable and Submarine Telegraphy]. ''Atlantic-cable.com''. Retrieved September 1, 2011.</ref>

During the [[Panic of 1857]], Field's paper business suspended, and [[Peter Cooper]], his neighbor in [[Gramercy Park]], was the only one that kept him from going under.

On August 26, 1858, Field returned to a triumphant homecoming at [[Great Barrington, Massachusetts]], saluting this Massachusetts boy made good. "This has been a great day here," trumpeted ''[[The New York Times]],'' "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."<ref>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1858/08/27/78860329.pdf Latest by Telegraph, Ovation to Cyrus W. Field]. ''The New York Times'', August 23, 1858. Retrieved September 1, 2011.</ref>

Field's activities brought him into contact with a number of prominent persons on both sides of the Atlantic &ndash; including [[George Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon|Lord Clarendon]] and [[William Ewart Gladstone]], the British [[Chancellor of the Exchequer|Finance Minister]] at the time. Field's communications with Gladstone would become important in the middle of the [[American Civil War]], when three letters he received from Gladstone between November 27, 1862 and December 9, 1862 caused a furor,<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20140703141334/http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~hou01481 Widener Library manuscripts]</ref> because Gladstone appeared to express support of the secessionist southern states in forming the [[Confederate States of America]].<ref>Stewart Mitchell. ''Horatio Seymour of New York''. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Mass., 1938, p. 254.</ref>

In 1866, Field laid a new, more durable trans-Atlantic cable using Brunel's {{ship|SS|Great Eastern}}. ''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 [[Congressional Gold Medal|gold medal from the U.S. Congress]] and the grand prize at the [[International Exposition (1867)|International Exposition]] in Paris for his work on the transatlantic cable.