History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications
from the first submarine cable of 1850 to the worldwide fiber optic network

The Atlantic Cable Projectors

On March 10th, 1854, Cyrus Field and his partners acquired the Newfoundland Electric Telegraph Company, which had the exclusive rights to erect telegraphs in Newfoundland. This was the beginning of his attempts to lay the Atlantic Cable between Ireland and Newfoundland. The project occupied Field for the next twelve years, concluding in 1866 with the successful installation of two cables.

“When the first cable was laid in 1858, the Chamber of Commerce elected Cyrus Field an honorary member, and gave him a gold medal.  And again, in 1866, when the final success was assured, it was celebrated by a banquet.  Now the Chamber of Commerce completes its gracious office of commemoration by a more permanent memorial of the Atlantic Telegraph in a historical painting of Mr. Field and his honored associates, that, as it hangs upon the walls of the Chamber, will remind those who come after us what manner of men they were who achieved so great a work for their country and for the world.”

New-York, May 30, 1895.

From the Introductory Note in The Atlantic Cable Projectors, Chamber of Commerce New-York, 1895.

The Chamber of Commerce of the State of New-York was organized in 1768, the first in the USA.  In 1901 the Chamber occupied its ornate beaux arts landmark building at 65 Liberty Street, the opening of which was commemorated with a gold medal produced by Tiffany & Company.

Title page image

Painting by Daniel Huntington

Presented to the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New-York

May 23d, 1895

by Morris K. Jesup, Chairman of the Committee

and received by

Alexander E. Orr, President of the Chamber

        Click on each person's name for a larger image

Click here to see signatures of Cooper and Morse

Click here for Peter Cooper's story of The Laying of the Ocean Cable

The Artist

HUNTINGTON, Daniel, painter, was born in New York city, Oct. 14, 1816; son of Benjamin and Faith Trumbull (Huntington) Huntington; grandson of Benjamin (1736-1800) and Anne (Huntington) Huntington and of Gen. Jedidiah (1743-1818) and Ann (Moore) Huntington, and a descendant of Simon and Margaret (Baret) Huntington, the Puritan immigrants who left Norwich, England, for America in 1633, Simon dying at sea and Margaret and her children settling in Massachusetts Bay colony.

He was graduated at Hamilton college in 1836, and while an undergraduate he painted his first picture, "Ichabod Crane Flogging a Scholar." He studied art under Prof. S. F. B. Morse at the University of the City of New York and at the National Academy of Design, 1835-36. He spent the summer of 1836 in the highlands of the Hudson; exhibited in the National Academy of Design in 1837, and was made an associate academician in 1839 and an academician in 1840.

He was married, June 16, 1840, to Sophia Richards, of Brooklyn, N.Y. He studied in Paris, Florence and Rome in 1839, and again in 1843-45.

He produced Sibyl, Christian Prisoners and Shepherd Boy (1839); An Old Gentleman Reading, being a portrait of his father, painted in 1837, exhibited at the Academy in 1838, and which attracted much attention, and Mercy's Dream (1841). His visit abroad in 1843-45 re-suited in The Sacred Lesson, The Communion of the Sick, and other notable works in radical contrast to his earliest boyhood efforts, which produced the Bar Room Politician and A Toper Asleep. His visit along the Hudson in 1836 produced several Views near Vetplanck's, and the Dunderburg Mountains. In 1837 he painted the Rondout Creek at Twilight and the Shawangunk Mountain Lake. He was president of the National Academy of Design, 1862-69, and 1877-91; president of the Century association, 1879-95, and vice-president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Hamilton college conferred on him the degree of A.M. in 1850 and that of LL.D. in 1869. His more important works not above mentioned include: the Roman Penitents (1844); Christiana and Her Children; Queen Mary Signing the Death Warrant of Lady Jane Grey; Lady Jane Grey and Feckenham in the Tower (18,50); Republican Court (1861); Sowing the Word (1869); St. Jerome(1870); Juliet on the Balcony (1870); The Narrows, Lake George (1871); Titian; Clement VII and Charles V. at Bologna; Philosophy and Christian Art (1878); The Goldsmith's Daughter (1884). His portraits include many of the notable men of his time, including Presidents Van Buren, Lincoln, Grant, Hayes and Arthur; Gen. John A. Dix, William Cullen Bryant, Chancellor Ferris, James Lenox, Louis Agassiz, Robert C. Winthrop, John Sherman, and Generals Sheridan and Sherman. His later works include the American Projectors of the Atlantic Cable, a group for the Chamber of Commerce; and portraits for the same collection.

From: The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans: Volume V, page 445

The labels show a re-creation of the 10 March 1854 meeting at Cyrus Field's home in the Gramercy Park district of Manhattan.

From left to right: Cyrus W. Field, Chandler White, Samuel F.B. Morse, Moses Taylor, Marshall O. Roberts, Peter Cooper, David Dudley Field (on inner label only).

Top seal

Inner label

Backflap label

Outer label

Portrait details from the Cable Cabinet cigar box inner label Artist unknown, circa 1895
Cyrus W. Field
Chandler White	Samuel F.B. Morse
Moses Taylor	Marshall O. Roberts
Peter Cooper	David D. Field

Cigar box inner label courtesy of InStone, Inc., an excellent source for historic labels.
Outer label courtesy of Chip Brooks, Cigar Label Junkie website.

Another view of the 1854 meeting, from the invitation engraved by
Tiffany & Company for Cyrus Field's 25th anniversary celebration,
held at Field's Gramercy Park residence on 10 March 1879.

The historical marker on the building which now occupies
the site of Cyrus Field's Gramercy Park residence

Research Material Needed

The Atlantic Cable website is non-commercial, and its mission is to make available on line as much information as possible.

You can help - if you have cable material, old or new, please contact me. Cable samples, instruments, documents, brochures, souvenir books, photographs, family stories, all are valuable to researchers and historians.

If you have any cable-related items that you could photograph, copy, scan, loan, or sell, please email me: billb@ftldesign.com