Cyrus West Field (1819-1892), American merchant and promoter, laid the first transatlantic telegraph cable.

Cyrus Field was born of Puritan stock in Stockbridge, Mass., on Nov. 30, 1819. He quit school at 15. After short periods of work in New York and Massachusetts, Field became a junior partner with a New York firm of paper dealers. When the company failed in 1841, he personally assumed its debts.

Field and his brother-in-law set up the mercantile firm of Cyrus W. Field and Company. By 1852 Field was free of debt and had built a personal fortune of $250,000. He retired from business to devote himself to his passion: to connect Europe and America by submarine telegraph cable.

From the British and American governments Field obtained charters and received promises of financial subsidies and naval ships to lay the cable. He enlisted financial backing from New York and London capitalists. Perhaps his most impressive feat was...