FIELD, CYRUS WEST (1819-1892), American capitalist, projector of the first Atlantic cable, was born at Stockbridge, Mass., on Nov. 3o, 181g. He was a brother of David Dudley Field. In 184o he went into the paper business for himself at Westfield, Mass., but almost immediately became a partner in E. Root and Co., wholesale paper dealers in New York city. In 1841 he formed the firm of Cyrus W. Field and Co. In 1853 he travelled with Frederick E. Church, the artist, through South America. In 1854 he became interested in the project of Fred erick Newton Gisborne (1824-92) for a telegraph across New foundland; and he was attracted by the idea of a trans-Atlantic telegraphic cable, as to which he consulted S. F. B. Morse and Matthew F. Maury, head of the National Observatory at Wash ington. With Peter Cooper, Moses Taylor (1806-82), Marshall Owen Roberts (1814-8o) and Chandler White, he formed the New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company. He and John W. Brett, who was now his principal colleague, ap proached Sir Charles Bright (q.v.) in London, and in Dec. 1856, the Atlantic Telegraph Company was organized by them in Great Britain, a Government grant being secured of f 14,00o an nually for Government messages. Similar grants were made by the United States Government. Unsuccessful attempts to lay the cable were made in Aug. 1857, and in June 1858; the com plete cable was laid between July 7 and Aug. 5, 1858 ; but in October the cable became useless, owing to the failure of its electrical insulation. In July 1866, after a futile attempt in the previous year, a cable was laid and brought successfully into use. From the Congress of the United States he received a gold medal and a vote of thanks, and he received many other honours both at home and abroad. In 1877 he bought a controlling interest in the New York Elevated Railroad Company, controlling the Third and Ninth avenue lines, of which he was president in 1877-80. He worked with Jay Gould for the completion of the Wabash railway, and bought The New York Evening Express and The Mail and combined them as The Mail and Express. In 1879 Field suffered financially by Samuel J. Tilden's heavy sales of "Ele vated" stock, but lost much more in the great "Manhattan squeeze" of June 24, 1887, when Jay Gould and Russell Sage, who had been supposed to be his backers, forsook him. Field died in New York on July 12, 1892.
See the biography by his daughter, Isabella (Field) Judson, Cyrus W. Field, His Life and Work (1896) ; H. M. Field, History of the Atlantic Telegraph (1866) ; and Charles Bright, The Story of the Atlantic Cable (1903) .