James Alexander Scrymser

Background

James Alexander was born on July 18, 1839 in New York City, New York, United States. He was a son of James Scrymgeour Scrymser and his wife, Ann Thompson.

Education

Scrymser attended College Hill Academy at Poughkeepsie, New York, where he was graduated in 1856.

Career

At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 Scrymser was in his twenty-second year and had made no choice of a profession or calling. With Francis Channing Barlow, he enlisted as a private in the 12th New York Infantry, one of the units that went to the defense of Washington in the spring of 1861. He was soon commissioned a second lieutenant in the 43rd New York and later received a staff appointment in the division commanded by General William Farrar Smith. He served with the VI Corps, winning a captaincy, and later in the XVIII Army Corps, and is said to have been in all the battles of the Army of the Potomac for three years.

Returning to New York after his discharge from military service at the end of the war, he had his attention directed to the need of telegraphic communication between the United States and Cuba. Cyrus Field's final and successful attempt to lay the Atlantic cable was well under way, and submarine cable systems had been projected in many parts of the world. For the International Ocean Telegraph Company, incorporated in 1865, Scrymser undertook almost single-handed to see that 235 miles of cable were laid from Florida to Cuba and secured sufficient capital to complete the task in 1867. He had from the first been the motive power of the enterprise, and within a few years he became its titular head as well.

When, in 1878, Jay Gould acquired the property and annexed it to the Western Union system, Scrymser resigned the presidency and at once turned his attention to the development of telegraph lines in Mexico and Central America. He was the chief executive of the Mexican Cable (later Telegraph) Company after it began to operate in 1881. The company held a fifty-year exclusive concession granted by Porfirio Diaz, president of Mexico, and controlled Mexico's land wires. Its business increased rapidly.

In 1892, When Dr. Charles Henry Parkhurst was beginning his crusade in New York against the alliance of the police with protected vice, it was Scrymser who planned the great Cooper Union meeting that brought to the lone clergyman the open and substantial aid of influential elements in the city's population.

He died in New York City.

Achievements

• Being the chief executive of the Mexican Cable (later Telegraph) Company, James Alexander Scrymser raised the capital for laying a cable from Galveston, Texas, to Vera Cruz, Mexico. In the result of his work new cable construction enabled the extension of the service to Central and South America, a "via Colon" route from New York to the west coast of South America and a New York to Brazil line were completed.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Personal Reminiscences of James A. Scrymser, in Times of Peace and War

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

Views

Although Scrymser was interested in social-welfare efforts and gave much of his time and money to their promotion.

Connections

In 1869 Scrymser was married to Mary C. Prime of New York, who survived him.

Father:

James Scrymgeour Scrymser

Mother:

Ann Thompson

Spouse:

Mary C. Prime

coworker:

William Farrar Smith

References

• Who's Who in America, 1916 - 1917, Vol. IX 9: A Biographical Dictionary Of Notable Living Men And Women In The United States