Cleveland Past and Present: Its Representative Men Part 52

Foremost on the roll of those who have won a distinguished position in the telegraphic history of the West, is the name of Jeptha H. Wade, until recently president of the Western Union Telegraph Company, and who still, although compelled by failing health to resign the supreme executive control, remains on the Board of direction, and is one of the leading spirits in the management.

Mr. Wade was born in Seneca county, New York, August 11, 1811, and was brought up to mechanical pursuits, in which he achieved a fair amount of success. Having a taste for art, and finding his health impaired by the labors and close application consequent on his mechanical employment, he, in 1835, turned his attention to portrait painting, and by arduous study and conscientious devotion to the art, became very successful. Whilst engaged in this work, the use of the camera in producing portraits came into notice. Mr. Wade purchased a camera, and carefully studied the printed directions accompanying the instrument. These were vague, and served but as hints for a more careful investigation and more thorough development of the powers of the camera. By repeated experiments and intelligent reasoning from effects back to causes, and from causes again to effects, he at length became master of the subject, and succeeded in taking the first daguerreotype west of New York.

When busy with his pencil and easel taking portraits, and varying his occupation by experimenting with the camera, news came to him of the excitement created by the success of the telegraphic experiment of building a line between Baltimore and Was.h.i.+ngton. This was in 1844. Mr.

Wade turned his attention to the new science, studied it with his accustomed patience and a.s.siduity, mastered its details, so far as then understood, and immediately saw the advantage to the country, and the pecuniary benefit to those immediately interested, likely to accrue from the extension of the telegraph system which had just been created.

Without abandoning his devotion to art, he entered on the work of extending the telegraph system. The first line west of Buffalo was built by him, between Detroit and Jackson, Michigan, and the Jackson office was opened and operated by him, although he had received no practical instruction in the manipulation of the instruments. In the year 1848, an incident occurred, which, though at the time he bitterly deplored it as a calamity, was, in fact, a blessing in disguise, and compelled him perforce to embark on the tide which bore him on to fame and fortune. He was an operator in the line of the Erie and Michigan Telegraph Company, at Milan, Ohio, when a conflagration destroyed all the materials and implements forming his stock in trade as a portrait painter. After a brief consideration of the subject, he decided not to replace the lost implements of his art, but to cut loose altogether from the career of an artist, and hereafter to devote himself solely to the business he had entered upon with fair promise of success.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Very Truly Yours, J. H. Wade]

The first years of telegraph construction were years of much vexation of spirit to those engaged in such enterprises. Difficulties of all kinds, financial, mechanical, and otherwise, had to be encountered and overcome.

There were those who objected to the wires crossing their land or coming in proximity to their premises, fearing damage from the electric current in storms. Those who had invested their capital wanted immediate large returns. Some of those who had to be employed in the construction of the lines were ignorant of the principles of electrical science, and their ignorance caused serious embarra.s.sments and delays. Defective insulation was a standing cause of trouble, and telegraphers were studying and experimenting how to overcome the difficulties in this direction, but without satisfactory result. In the face of all these difficulties, Mr.

Wade proceeded with the work of extending and operating telegraph lines.

In addition to the interest he had secured in the Erie and Michigan line.

he constructed the "Wade line" between Cleveland via Cincinnati, to St.

Louis, and worked it with success. The "House consolidation" placed Mr.

Wade's interest in the lines mentioned in the hands of the Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company, and before long this consolidation was followed by the union of all the House and Morse lines in the West, and the organization of the Western Union Telegraph Company. In all these acts of consolidation the influence of Mr. Wade was active and powerful.

Realizing the fact that compet.i.tion between short detached lines rendered them unproductive, and that in telegraphing, as in other things, union is strength, he directed his energies to bringing about the consolidation, not only of the lines connecting with each other, but of rival interests.

The soundness of his views has been proved by the unremunerativeness of the lines before consolidation and their remarkable prosperity since.

Mr. Wade was one of the princ.i.p.al originators of the first Pacific telegraph, and on the formation of the company he was made its first president. The location of the line, and its construction through the immense territory--then in great part a vast solitude--between Chicago and San Francisco, were left mainly to his unaided judgment and energy, and here again those qualities converted a hazardous experiment into a brilliant success. Mr. Wade remained president of the Pacific Company until he secured its consolidation with the Western Union Telegraph Company, to accomplish which, he went to California, in the latter part of 1860, and succeeded in harmonizing the jarring telegraphic interests there. On the completion of this consolidation, Mr. Wade was made president of the Western Union Telegraph Company, his headquarters being in Cleveland.

At a meeting of the Board of Directors, in July, 1867, a letter was received from Mr. Wade, declining a re-election to the office of president. The following resolutions were unanimously adopted by the Board:

_Resolved_, That in receiving the letter of J. H. Wade, Esq., declining re-election to the presidency of this company, we cannot pa.s.s it to the officiai files without recording our testimony to the distinguished service he has rendered to the general system of American Telegraphs, and especially to the company whose management he now resigns.

Connecting himself with it in its earliest introduction to public use, and interesting himself in its construction, he was the first to see that the ultimate triumph of the telegraph, both as a grand system of public utility, and of secure investment, would be by some absorbing process, which would prevent the embarra.s.sments of separate organizations.

To the foresight, perseverance and tact of Mr. Wade, we believe is largely due the fact of the existence of one great company to-day with its thousand arms, grasping the extremities of the continent, instead of a series of weak, unreliable lines, unsuited to public wants, and, as property, precarious and insecure.

_Resolved_, That we tender to Mr. Wade our congratulations on the great fruition of his work, signalized and cemented by this day's election of a Board representing the now united leading telegraph interests of the nation, accompanied with regrets that he is not with us to receive our personal acknowledgements, and to join us in the election of a successor to the position he has so usefully filled.

Office of the Western Union Telegraph Company, New York, July 10th, 1867.

William Orton, President.

O. H. Palmer, Secretary.

As before mentioned, Mr. Wade remains a director and leading spirit in the Board, where his suggestions are listened to with respect and acted on without unnecessary delay. In addition to his connection with the telegraph Company, Mr. Wade is heavily interested in several of the most important manufactories, in the railroads, and in the leading banks of Cleveland. The wealth he has acc.u.mulated is mostly invested in such a manner as to largely aid in building up the property of Cleveland, a city in which he feels a strong interest, not only from the fact that it has been for the past twenty years his place of residence, but that the wealth enabling him to enjoy the beautiful home he has secured there, was made in Cleveland.

It has already been noted that Mr. Wade, when a painter, took the first daguerreotype west of New York. Soon after his entering upon the business of telegraphy, he put into practice, for the first time, the plan of enclosing a submarine cable in iron armor. It was applied to the cable across the Mississippi, at St. Louis, in 1850. Weights had been applied to the previous cables, at regular distances, on account of the sand, change of bottom, drifts, and other difficulties that interfered with the safety of the cable. Mr. Wade conceived the idea of combining weight and protection in the cable itself. He constructed it with eighteen pieces of wire, placed lengthwise around the cable, and bound together with soft iron wire at intervals. While the spiral cordage of hemp, such as was used at that time on the cable from Dover to Calais, would stretch, and allow the strain to come on the cable itself. This invention caused the strain to come on the armor. It was a complete success, and lasted until the line was abandoned. Mr. Wade also invented, in 1852, what is now known as the Wade insulator, which has been used more extensively, perhaps, than any other.

Among the strong points in Mr. Wade's character, is his readiness and ability to adapt himself to whatever he undertakes to do. The evidence of his common sense, business foresight and indomitable perseverance, has been proved by the success attending the various pursuits in which circ.u.mstances have placed him. Finding, in early manhood, his mechanical labor undermining his health, he turned his attention to portrait and miniature painting, to which he applied himself so close that after a dozen years or more at the easel, he was compelled to abandon it and seek more active and less sedentary pursuits. Having so long applied himself to painting--the business of all others the most calculated to disqualify a man for everything else--but few men would have had the courage to enter so different a field, but Mr. Wade seemed equal to the task, and with appropriate courage and renewed energy grappled with the difficulties and mystories of the telegraph business, then entirely new, having no books or rules to refer to, and without the experience of others to guide him, and having, as it were, to climb a ladder, every round of which had to be invented as he progressed. But nothing daunted him. Through perseverance and system he succeeded, not only in supplying the United States in the most rapid manner with better and cheaper telegraphic facilities than has been afforded any other country on the globe, but in making for himself the ample fortune to which his ability and energy so justly ent.i.tle him.

And when care and over-work in the telegraph business had made such an impression upon his health as to induce him to retire from its management, and give more attention to his private affairs, he was again found equal to the emergency, and has proved himself equally successful as a financier and business man generally, as he had before shown himself in organizing and building up the telegraph speciality.

Anson Stager.

One of the most widely known names in connection with telegraphy in the West--and not in the West alone, but probably throughout the United States--is that of General Anson Stager. From the organization of the Western Union Telegraph Company, General Stager has had the executive management of its lines as general superintendent, and the position has not only brought him into close relations with all connected in any way with the telegraph, but has given him a larger circle of business acquaintances than it falls to the lot of most men to possess. The natural effect of his position and the extraordinary course of events during his occupation of that position, have brought him into communication, and frequently into intimate confidential relations, with the leading men in commerce, in science, in journalism, in military affairs, and in State and national governments.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Very Respectfully Yours, Anson Stager]

Anson Stager was born in Ontario county, New York, April 20, 1825. At the age of sixteen he entered a printing office under the instruction of Henry O'Reilly, well known afterwards as a leader in telegraph construction and management. For four or five years he continued his connection with the "art preservative of all arts," and the knowledge of and sympathy with journalism which he acquired through his connection with it during this period of his life, enabled him during his subsequent telegraphic career to deal understandingly with the press in the peculiar relations it holds with the telegraph, and has occasioned many acts of courtesy and good will which the managers of the press have not been backward in recognizing and acknowledging.

In October, 1846, General Stager changed his location from the compositor's case to the telegraph operator's desk, commencing work as an operator in Philadelphia. With the extension of the lines westward, he removed to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and then crossed the Alleghenies to Pittsburgh, where he was the pioneer operator. His ability and intelligence were speedily recognized by those having charge of the new enterprise, and in the Spring of 1848, he was made chief operator of the "National lines" at Cincinnati, a post he filled so well that, in 1852, he was appointed superintendent of the Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company. Immediately following his appointment to that position the company with which he was connected absorbed the lines of the New York State Printing Telegraph Company, and General Stager's control was thus extended over that State.

Whilst holding the position of executive manager of the lines of this company, the negotiations for the consolidation of the competing and affiliated lines into one company were set on foot. General Stager warmly favored such a consolidation on equitable terms and set to work vigorously to promote it. On its consummation, and the organization of the Western Union Telegraph Company his services in that respect and his general fitness as a telegraph manager, were recognized by his appointment as general superintendent of the consolidated company. The position was, even then, one of great responsibility and difficulty, the vast net work of lines extending like a spider's web over the face of the country requiring a clear head, and practical knowledge to keep it free from confusion and embarra.s.sment, whilst the delicate and complicated relations in which the telegraph stood with regard to the railroads and the press increased the difficulties of the position. The rapid extension of the wires increased the responsibilities and multiplied the difficulties yearly, but the right man was in the right position, and everything worked smoothly.

The extensive and elaborate System of railroad telegraphs which is in use on all the railroads of the West and Northwest owes its existence to General Stager. The telegraphs and railroads have interests in common, and yet diverse, and the problem to be solved was, how to secure to the telegraph company the general revenue business of the railroad wires, and at the same time to enable the railroad companies to use the wires for their own especial purposes, such as the transmission of their own business correspondence, the moving of trains, and the comparison and adjustment of accounts between stations. How to do this without confusion and injustice to one or the other interest was the difficult question to be answered, and it was satisfactorily met by the scheme adopted by General Stager. That scheme, by the admirable simplicity, complete adaptability and perfection of detail of its system of contracts and plan of operating railroad telegraph lines, enabled the diverse, and seemingly jarring, interests to work together in harmony. Telegraph facilities are always at the disposal of the railroads in emergency, and have repeatedly given vital aid, whilst the railroad interests have been equally prompt and active in a.s.sisting the telegraph when occasion arises.

The relations between the journalistic interests of the country and the telegraph, through the various press a.s.sociations for the gathering and transmission of news by telegraph, have also given occasion for the exercise of judgment and executive ability. The various and frequently clas.h.i.+ng interests of the general and special press a.s.sociations and of individual newspaper enterprise, and the necessity, for economical purposes, of combining in many instances the business of news gathering with news transmission, make the relations between the press and telegraph of peculiar difficulty and delicacy, and probably occasioned not the smallest portion of General Stager's business anxieties. It is safe to say, that in all the embarra.s.sing questions that have arisen, and in all the controversies that have unavoidably occurred at intervals, no complaint has ever been made against General Stager's ability, fairness, or courtesy to the press.

Whilst the Western Union Telegraph Company has been developing from its one wire between Buffalo and Louisville into its present giant proportions, General Stager has had a busy life. His planning mind and watchful eye were needed everywhere, and were everywhere present. The amount of travel and discomfort this entailed during the building of the earlier lines may be imagined by those who know what a large extent of country is covered by these lines, and what the traveling facilities were in the West before the introduction of the modern improvements in railway traveling, and before railroads themselves had reached a large portion of the country to be traveled over.

With the breaking out of the rebellion, a new era in General Stager's life commenced. With the firing of the first rebel gun on Fort Sumpter, and the resultant demand for troops to defend the nation's life, the Governors of Ohio, Illinois and Indiana united in taking possession of the telegraph lines in those States for military purposes, and the superintendent of the Western Union Telegraph Company was appointed to represent these in their official capacity. General Stager acted with promptness and vigor, and no small share of the credit accorded to those States for the promptness with which their troops were in the field and striking effective blows for the Union, is due to General Stager for the ability with which he made the telegraph cooperate with the authorities in directing the military movements. When General McClellan took command of the Union forces in West Virginia and commenced the campaign that drove the rebels east of the mountains, General Stager accompanied him as chief of the telegraph staff, and established the first system of field telegraph used during the war.

The wire followed the army headquarters wherever that went, and the enemy were confounded by the constant and instant communications kept up between the Union army in the field and the Union government at home. When General McClellan was summoned to Was.h.i.+ngton to take command of the Army of the Potomac, General Stager was called by him to organize the military telegraph of that department. This he accomplished, and remained in charge of it until November, 1862, when he was commissioned captain and a.s.sistant quartermaster, and by order of the Secretary of war, appointed chief of the United States Military Telegraphs throughout the United States--a control that covered all the main lines in the country. He was subsequently commissioned colonel and aid-de-damp, and a.s.signed to duty in the War Department, and was also placed in charge of the cypher correspondence of the Secretary of War. The cryptograph used throughout the war was perfected by him, and baffled all attempts of the enemy to translate it. At the close of the war he left the active military service of the government, retiring with the brevet of Brigadier General, conferred for valuable and meritorious services.

At the close of the war the Southwestern and American Telegraph Companies were consolidated with the Western Union Telegraph Company, and a re-organization of the latter company effected. The general superintendency of the Consolidated company was urged upon General Stager, but as this would necessitate his removal to New York, he declined it, preferring to live in the west. For a time he meditated retiring altogether from the telegraph business and embarking in newspaper life, for which his early training had given him a taste, and towards which he always maintained an affection. Eventually the company persuaded him to remain in connection with them, and to suit his wishes, the field of the company's operations was divided into three divisions, the Central, Eastern and Southern. General Stager a.s.sumed control of the Central, which covered the field with which he had so long been identified, and which left him with his headquarters in the home he had for years occupied, in Cleveland. Early in 1869, the duties of his position rendered it necessary that he should remove to Chicago, which he did with great reluctance, his relations with Cleveland business, and its people, being close and uniformly cordial.

General Stager is a man with a host of friends and without, we believe, one enemy. His position was such as to bring him into contact with every kind of interest, and frequently, of necessity, into conflict with one or other, but his position was always maintained with such courtesy, as well as firmness, that no ill feeling resulted from the controversy, however it terminated.

Socially he is one of the most genial of companions; in character the personification of uprightness and honor; firm in his friends.h.i.+ps and incapable of malice toward any one. Well situated financially, happy in his domestic circle, of wide popularity, and possessing the esteem of those who know him best, General Stager is one of those whose lot is enviable, and who has made his position thus enviable by his own force of character and geniality of disposition.

City Improvements

Cleveland covers a large extent of territory. The width of its streets and the unusual amount of frontage possessed by most of the dwellings, made the work of city improvements in the way of paving, sewerage and water supply, at first very slow of execution. The light gravelly soil, on which the greater portion of the city is built, enabled these works to be postponed, until the increased number and compactness of the population, and excess of wealth, would render the expense less burdensome.

The first attempts at paving were made on Superior street, below the Square, and on River street. The paving was of heavy planks laid across the street, and was at the time a source of pride to the citizens; but when, in coming years, the planks were warped and loosened, it became an intolerable nuisance. On River street the floods of the Cuyahoga sometimes rushed through the warehouses and covered the street, floating off the planks and leaving them in hopeless disorder on the subsidence of the waters. It was at last determined to pave these streets with stone.

Limestone was at first chosen, but found not to answer, and Medina sandstone was finally adopted, with which all the stone paving of the streets has been since done. Within two or three years the Nicholson wood pavement has been introduced, and has been laid extensively on the streets above the bluff. On the low land along the river valley the paving still continues to be of stone. At the present time there are between seventeen and eighteen miles of pavement finished or under construction, about half of which is Nicholson wood pavement, and the remainder Medina sandstone.

Within a few years the work of sewering the city has been systematized and pushed forward vigorously. At first, the sewers were made to suit the needs of a particular locality, without any reference to a general system, and consequently were found utterly inadequate to the growing necessities of the city. Proper legislation was obtained from the General a.s.sembly, money was obtained on the credit of the city, the territory was mapped out into sewer districts, with sewer lines for each district, so arranged as to form a part of one harmonious whole, and the work commenced. All the main sewers drain into the lake. There are now about twenty-seven miles of main and branch sewers finished, and additional sewers are in progress of construction.

The rapid growth of the city, and the gradual failure, or deterioration, of the wells, in the most thickly settled parts, rendered it necessary to find some other source of a constant supply of pure water. It was determined to obtain the supply from Lake Erie, and for this purpose an inlet pipe was run out into the lake, west of the Old River Bed. The pipe is of boiler plate, three-eighths of an inch thick, fifty inches in diameter, and three hundred feet long, extending from the sh.o.r.e to the source of supply at twelve feet depth of water, and terminating in the lake at a circular tower, constructed of piles driven down as deep as they can be forced into the bottom of the lake. There are two concentric rows of piles, two abreast, leaving eight feet s.p.a.ce between the outer and interior rows, which s.p.a.ce is filled with broken stones to the top of the piles. The piles are then capped with strong timber plates, securely bolted together and fastened with iron to the piles. The outside diameter of the tower is thirty-four feet, the inside diameter is eight feet, forming a strong protection around an iron well-chamber, which is eight feet in diameter and fifteen feet deep, which is riveted to the end of the inlet pipe. An iron grating fixed in a frame which slides in a groove, to be removed and cleaned at pleasure, is attached to the well-chamber, and forms the strainer, placed four feet below the surface of the lake, through which the water pa.s.ses into the well-chamber and out at the inlet pipe. A brick aqueduct connects the sh.o.r.e end of the inlet pipe with the engine house, three thousand feet distant. From the engine house the water is conveyed to the reservoir, on Franklin, Kentucky and Duane streets, built on a ridge thirty feet higher than any other ground in the city.

The Cleveland Water Works were commenced on the 10th day of August, 1854, and were so far completed as to let water on the city on the 19th day of September, 1856. The time required to build the Works was two years and thirty-nine days. The capacity of these Works to deliver water is greater than the originally estimated wants of the population the works were intended to supply, which was for 100,000. They are, however, capable of supplying at least 300,000 inhabitants with abundance of water. By an enlargement of the main pump barrel and plunger to each Cornish engine, which was contemplated in the plans, the supply may be increased to an almost unlimited extent. No fear can be entertained that the present Water Works in the next fifty years will fail to yield a superabundant supply of water.

The water was first introduced into the city temporarily at the earnest solicitation of the Mayor, Common Council, and Trustees of Water Works, in which the citizens generally partic.i.p.ated, on the occasion of the State Fair, on the 24th of September, 1856. Apart from the Fair, this event was hailed with demonstrations of great joy as the celebration of the introduction of the waters of Lake Erie into the city of Cleveland. At the intersection of the road ways, crossing at the centre of the Public Square, a capacious fountain, of chaste and beautiful design was erected, from which was thrown a jet of pure crystal water high into the air, which, as the centre, greatest attraction, gratified thousands of admiring spectators. It became necessary after the Fair to shut off the water as was antic.i.p.ated, to remove a few pipes near the s.h.i.+p Channel which had broke in two by the unequal settling of the pipes in the quicksand bed through which they were laid. These repairs were promptly made, and the water let on the city again; since which time the supply has been regular and uninterrupted. The length of pipes laid up to the first of January, 1869, aggregated thirty-nine and one-half miles. The total cost of the Works to that period was $722,273.33. The earnings, over running expenses, for 1868, were $36,340.23, being a little over five per cent, on the capital invested. The preliminary work is now doing for the construction of a tunnel under the bed of the lake, in order to obtain a water supply at such a distance from the sh.o.r.e as to be beyond the reach of the winter ice-field and the impurities collected beneath the ice-crust.

Three commodious and tasteful markets have been erected within a few years, one on the west side of the river, one in the fifth ward, and the Central Market, at the junction of Woodland avenue and Broadway.

Four horse railroads are in active operation within the city: the East Cleveland, organized in 1859, and running from the junction of Superior and Water streets, by the way of Euclid avenue and Prospect street, to the eastern limit of the city on Euclid avenue, thence continuing to East Cleveland. This line has also a branch running off the main line at Brownell street, and traversing the whole length of Garden street, to the eastern limit of the city. The Kinsman street line, organized in 1859, runs from the junction of Superior and Water streets, through Ontario street and Woodland avenue to Woodland Cemetery. The West Side railroad runs from the junction of Superior and Water streets, by way of South Water, Detroit and Kentucky street, to Bridge street, with a branch along Pearl street. The St. Clair street railroad, the latest built, runs along St. Clair from Water street to the eastern line of the city. Besides these, a local railroad, operated by steam, connects the Kinsman street line with Newburg, and another of a similar character connects the West Side railroad with Rocky River. Charters have been obtained for a railroad to connect the Pearl street branch of the West Side railroad with University Heights, and for a line to run parallel with the bluff overlooking the north bank of the Cuyahoga from River street, to the boundary between the city and Newburg towns.h.i.+p.