Background
Hiram Sibley was born on Feburary 6, 1807 at North Adams, Massachussets, the son of Benjamin and Zilpha (Davis) Sibley.
Hiram Sibley was born on Feburary 6, 1807 at North Adams, Massachussets, the son of Benjamin and Zilpha (Davis) Sibley.
His education was what the village school could supply.
At an early age, having already practised the shoemaker's trade, he left North Adams, and went to the village of Lima, New York, where he entered a cotton factory. At twenty-one, he started a machine-shop in the nearby town of Mendon, and there he built up a successful business, of which he was able to dispose at a profit.
He also carried on at this time an extensive wool-carding business at Sparta and Mount Morris. In 1838, with the beginnings of a fortune already in hand, he moved to Rochester, New York. Here he engaged in banking and real estate, and acquired sufficient popularity to be elected sheriff of Monroe County in 1843.
During his period of office he came into contact with Royal Earl House, the inventor of the House printing telegraph, then in financial difficulties. With this contact began Sibley's interest in the telegraph itself. He was instrumental the next year in obtaining an appropriation from Congress for the support of the experiments carried on by Samuel F. B. Morse, and in 1851 he bought up the House patents and organized the New York & Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company.
Before the end of the year he had built 100 miles of line. He early formed the conviction, however, that there were too many small companies, and that consolidation was demanded. Accordingly, in 1854 he formed an association with Ezra Cornell, who had valuable grants under the Morse patents, and the two agreed to form the so-called Western Union Telegraph Company, which was chartered in 1856, with Sibley as president. This position he held for the next ten years.
Under his administration the number of telegraph offices increased from 132 to 4, 000, and the value of the property from $220, 000 to $48, 000, 000. He was the earnest advocate of a transcontinental telegraph line, and, failing to secure the support of his co-directors in the Western Union, he undertook the project on his own account, securing from Congress in 1860 an annual subsidy of $40, 000 for ten years and shrewdly coming to terms with a California rival.
The line was a success from the beginning and was amalgamated with the Western Union in 1864. He now dreamed of telegraphic communication with Europe via Bering Strait and Siberia.
He had thoughtfully played a leading part in the entertainment of the Russian naval squadron in 1863, and when he visited Russia, soon afterward, was cordially received by the Czar.
Wires were actually strung in Alaska and Siberia when the laying of the transatlantic cable led to the collapse of the project at heavy loss. Retiring from the Western Union Company in 1869, Sibley started an extensive seed and nursery business. He had also a large interest in railroads in the South and West, and made extensive investments in both sections.
He bought a 40, 000-acre farm in Illinois, and much farm land elsewhere, usually letting it out to tenants, and was in 1888 the largest owner of improved lands in the United States. He also owned timber lands and salt mines. The scale of his agricultural enterprises has hardly been appreciated.
He took an active interest in experiments of all kinds for the improvement of plants; he was much interested in reclamation, as in the case of the Fox Ridge Farm, formerly a swamp, in Central New York; he cultivated the largest farm in that state.
He died in Rochester.
In industry and agricultural pursuits alike, he was a man of extraordinary capacity. With his friend Ezra Cornell, he was one of the incorporators of Cornell University, and to the new institution he gave at various times the sum of $150, 000 for the foundation of the Sibley College of Mechanic Arts (now Sibley College of Mechanical Engineering). He also built and presented Sibley Hall to the University of Rochester, for use as a library. To Rochester hospitals and other charitable institutions he gave at least $100, 000.
His personality was an agreeable one. He had much humor, and was an excellent raconteur. In his business operations he practised the methods of diplomacy rather than those of coercion. He was simple in his habits and broad in his interests.
His wife was Elizabeth M. (Tinker) who, with a son and daughter, survived him.
