Death of Jeptha Wade

OVERLAND TELEGRAPH.

Death of Jeptha H. Wade, Who Was

Instrumental in Its Construction — The

First Message Across the Continent.

The death of Jeptha H. Wade in Cleveland, Ohio, a few days ago serves to recall to the minds of old Californians vivid recollections of early times in this State. Mr. Wade engineered the project of building the overland telegraph line from San Francisco to the East, and his ability and energy carried the scheme to a successful completion. Mr. Wade was seventy-nine years of age at the time of his death, and, according to the best sources of information, was a native of Ohio. His stay on the coast was limited to the time necessary to organize and consolidate various telegraphic interests. His personality, therefore, is familiar only to a few residents of this section at he present time.

THE FIRST TELEGRAPH LINE.

Before giving the story of the event that led up to the building of the overland telegraph line, a short sketch of the first telegraph line on the Pacific Coast may not be out of place. The fist movement to put the telegraph in operation in California was made by Oliver C. Allen and Clark Burnham of New York. These gentlemen obtained from the California Legislature in the year 1852 a franchise, giving them the exclusive right to operate a line between San Francisco, San Jose, Stockton, Sacramento and Marysville for the term of fifteen years, provided the line was completed by November 1, 1853. In the fall of 1852 the California Telegraph Company was organized under this grant. Messrs. Allen and Burnham were the incorporators. The officers were: President, John Middleton; Treasurer, Joseph C. Palmer; Secretary, J. C. L. Wadsworth. But money at that period was worth from 3 to 5 per cent a month. The new project offered no such returns, and the 1852 went out with nothing accomplished. In the spring of 1853 another unsuccessful movement was made. In the meantime J. E. Strong canvassed the mining towns of Nevada, Grass Valley and Byron, and secured funds sufficient to erect a wire strung from tree to tree between those places. It went into operation, and was the first line of telegraph erected on the Pacific Coast. The insulation was of pitch-pine blocks with suspended hooks, which were soon found useless.

A LINE TO SAN JOSE.

In 1853 the company was reorganized under the name of the California Telegraph Company. This company purchased of Allen and Burnham their franchise and material. The officers were the same as the first company, with the exception that S. A. Sharp was chosen Secretary. The company thus reorganized meant business. It was at once determined to construct a line along the then highway of travel, following the stage line to Marysville, by way of Sacramento. For this purpose a contract was executed with Walter M. Rockwell, an energetic and reliable man, to construct a line, which was to be "mounted" with two wires, one for up and down business. There seems to have been but little perception of the permanent value of the undertaking, for the builder was allowed to erect the line of almost any material. The first section was erected between San Francisco and San Jose. It did not then strike the public that this frail structure, with its thin iron filaments, was the first link in the chain of fraternal intercourse which was destined to bind the people of the Atlantic with the Pacific.

James Gamble, a man whose name is synonymous with the growth and progress of telegraphy on the Pacific Coast, erected the first wire on the new line. The first message sent over it was sent by Mr. Gamble and received by Charles Blackwell of the visionary Collins scheme. It was sent from a valley twenty-five miles from San Francisco, where the banker Ralston afterward erected a magnificent place. The telegraph proved to be a remunerative investment, and from this time on its progress was continual.

J. H. WADE'S CAREER.

The history of the life of Jeptha H. Wade is the history of the Western Union Telegraph Company in the West. It was the building of the Erie and Michigan Telegraph Company that Mr. Wade, so conspicuous and successful afterward as a telegraph organizer first appears. He was a peripatetic portrait painter in early life, who like Morse, earned his living for many years by his brush. In connection with another, Wade built the line from Detroit to Jackson, and for a time managed the office at Jackson. In June, 1848, Wade was assigned to Milan, Mich., where he was allowed a salary, but where, like a genuine Yankee, he hung out his shingle as a portrait painter. He managed to secure the telegraphic rights in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota; also, all leases. On the reorganization of the Western Union Telegraph Company, in 1854, the managers, perceiving Mr. Wade's peculiar faculty for negotiation, arranged with him to enter the service and become active agent of the company. Mr. Wade was in the prime of life, and entered into the work assigned him with great vigor. He had now vast material at his command. The two great bodies of the country were in his hands. He was clothed with unlimited discretionary powers. Anson Stager was his right-hand man in the early struggles of the company.

LOOKING TO THE PACIFIC.

While the work of consolidating telegraph interests by the Western Union Telegraph Company was being prosecuted with earnestness and success, and Mr. Wade's mission among the railroads of the West had developed a broad and hopeful basis for strength, President Hiram Sibley of the company, with true pioneer instinct, had his eye on the Pacific. Mr. Sibley first presented the proposition to construct the overland line to the Pacific to his own board at Rochester, N. Y., on August 10, 1857. Mr. Sibley next brought his Pacific project before the North American Telegraph Association. This he did with great earnestness and eloquence. The magnitude and value of the work were evident. Additional information had robbed it of much of its supposed difficulty and peril. In 1860 Mr. Sibley applied to Congress for a brief period, during which the subject was closely scrutinized by a Congressional Committee, who unanimously and warmly recommended it to Congress. An Act was passed June 16, 1860, "to facilitate communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific States by electric telegraph." In the Act was included the payment during ten years of a nominal subsidy of $40,000. The official acceptance of Mr. Sibley's offer to construct the Pacific line was communicated by Secretary Canby, September 22, 1860. A contract was executed on very favorable terms to the Government, stipulating that the tariff between Brownsville, on the Missouri river, and San Francisco should not exceed $3 for ten word. On June 11, 1861, the Pacific Telegraph Company was formed under the laws of the Territory of Nebraska, with a capital of $1,000,000, to carry out the Sibley contract on the part of the Western Union Telegraph Company, to which the Sibley contract was assigned.

IN SAN FRANCISCO.

In the winter of 1860, Mr. Wade, as agent of the Western Union Telegraph Company, arrived in San Francisco and broached the idea of an overland telegraph line between the Atlantic and Pacific States. The proposition was cordially received. In a few weeks the Northern Telegraph Company, whose lines extended from Marysville to Yreka, the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company, whose lines extended from San Jose to Los Angeles, and the Placerville and Humboldt Telegraph Company, whose lines extended from Placerville to Virginia City, Nev., were merged into the California State Telegraph Company, with a united capital of $1,250,000, with the following officers: H. W. Carpenter, President; J. Mora Moss, First Vice President; E. S. Miller, Secretary; R. E. Brewster, Treasurer; James Gamble, General Superintendent.

BUILDING THE OVERLAND LINE.

As soon as the project for a telegraph line to the Atlantic seaboard took form, an application was made to the California Legislature for aid to construct the western section, it was regarded with favor, and, on April 27, 1861, $100,000 was appropriated for that purpose. Acting under the plan of the Eastern company an organization was effected for the construction of the overland line, with a capital of $1,250,000, and named the Overland Telegraph Company. The shares were promptly taken by the shareholders of the California State Telegraph Company, the President, Secretary and Treasurer of which became the officers of the new company. A compact was made with the Pacific Telegraph Company, the terms of which were that the latter should build the line from Brownsville, Mo., to Salt Lake City. James Gamble, the Superintendent of the Overland Telegraph Company, after great exertions, succeeded in getting enough materials on hand, and early in July, 1861, the two parties broke ground for the construction of the telegraph to the Pacific. The popular belief had fixed upon two years as the shortest period for the completion of a work so difficult and extensive. The work of the Western or Pacific section was much more difficult that the Eastern one, owing to many causes, but it was finished only two days after the Eastern parties had reached Salt Lake City, and the joy was supreme all over the country when on November 15, 1861, four months and eleven days after the work was begun, the press of both seaboards announced the work as finished. The first dispatch from the East announced the death of General Baker at Balls Bluff. It was an achievement of which both parties might be proud. The papers of both the Atlantic and Pacific States teemed with congratulations and ecomiums [sic] encomiums on the vigor and skill which had carried the enterprise to such a successful end. Under he skilled manipulation of Mr. Wade the telegraphs of the Pacific Coast became part of the general system of the Western Union Telegraph Company. The entire West with its growing population and immense possibilities became cemented in eternal bonds of friendship with the East.

IN PRIVATE LIFE.

Mr. Wade, after performing such splendid service on the Pacific Coast, having united during 1860-61 with consummate skill the telegraph interests of that section, was elected President of the Western Union Telegraph Company on the retirement of Hiram Sibley. On Gould's obtaining control of the organization Mr. Wade retired to private life. His splendid home in Euclid avenue, Cleveland, showed every evidence of wealth and culture. His benefactions to the city of Cleveland were many and costly. At the time of his death he was reported to be the richest man in that city.

Mr. Gamble, the Superintendent of the Overland telegraph, lives in Oakland, erect and supple as any of the saplings he used to cut on his way across the Continent. He contributed to the Overland Monthly in 1881 two very interesting articles on the telegraph in California and the building of the overland telegraph. He was General Manager of the Pacific division for many years, but, like Mr. Wade, resigned on the incoming of the Gould regime.