THEODORE NEWTON VAIL, born 16 July 1845, in Carrolton County, Ohio, belongs
to the Morris county family of Vails in New Jersey, descendants of John Vail,
a Quaker preacher, who settled in New Jersey in 1710. The family has always
been one of position and influence. Lewis Vail, civil engineer, grandfather
of Theodore N. Vail, early went to Ohio and was a pioneer in the building of
canals and highways. Stephen Vail, an uncle, founded The Speedwell Iron
Works, near Morristown, NJ, at which was built most of the machinery for the
first steamship which crossed the Atlantic Ocean, sailing from Savannah, GA.
Here, also, Morse perfected and first successfully operated the magnetic
telegraph, Stephen Vail and his sons, George and Alfred, supplying Morse with
the money, and Alfred the mechanical ingenuity. Alfred Vail invented the dot
and dash alphabet, which has always been used in telegraphing. William P.
Vail of this family was a leading physician and church worker in Northern New
Jersey at Blairstown, and George Vail represented his section in Congress and
was one of the lay Judges of the New Jersey Court of Pardons.
Davis Vail, son of Lewis Vail, and father of the subject of this biography,
born in Ohio, came East at an early age, was connected with The Speedwell Iron
Works, and married Phoebe Quinby, daughter of Judge Isaac Quinby of Morris
county. By this marriage, he became related to three notable brothers in law,
General Quinby, a graduate of West Point, a leading mathematician, Professor
of Mathematics at the Rochester University, and general in the Civil War; Dr.
William Quinby; and Dr. Augustus Quinby, all sons of Judge Isaac Quinby.
After marriage, Davis Vail went to Ohio, remaining there several years. His
son, Theodore, was born during the stay of the family in that part of the
country. When the lad was about four years old, Davis Vail returned to the
East and was again connected with The Speedwell Iron Works. In 1866, he
removed to Iowa, where he operated a large farm.
Theodore N. Vail was educated in the old academy in Morristown, and then
studied medicine with his uncle, Dr. William Quinby, but, having learned
telegraphy at the telegraph office in Headly's drug store in Morristown, he
left medicine and went to New York, where he became manager of a local office,
being afterward attached to the staff of J. C. Hinchman, then general
superintendent of the metropolitan and eastern divisions of The United States
Telegraph Co. He went West with his father in 1866, and engaged in farming,
but in the fall of 1868, went yet farther west and was made operator and
afterward agent at Pine Bluffs, Wyoming, on The Union Pacific Railroad. Pine
Bluffs was at that time the principal supply point for wood for The Union
Pacific, which had not then been completed.
In the Spring of 1869, Mr. Vail received an appointment as clerk in the
railway mail service between Omaha and Ogden, and in August 1869, he married
Miss Emma Righter, of Newark, NJ. He devoted himself with great diligence to
the improvement of the railway mail service, then in its infancy, and his good
work in the perfection of schemes for the distribution of the mails, and
especially his services in forwarding the mails during the long snow blockade
of 1870, called the attention of the Department to him, with the result that
he was assigned to duty between Chicago and Iowa City in the railway post
office. On this line, the entire distribution of overland mails was made
prior to the establishment of railway post office cars on The Union Pacific
Railroad. When the railway post office was established on The Union Pacific,
Mr. Vail was assigned to duty as head clerk.
In March, 1873, the Department called Mr. Vail to Washington and assigned him
to duty in the office of the General Superintendent of Railway Mail Service,
where he was charged with special oversight of distribution of the mails and
arrangement of "schemes" or charts of distribution. During this period, the
questions of the compensation of railroads and carriage of merchandise in the
mails were being agitated in Congress, and the Department placed upon Mr.
Vail the responsibility of preparing the post office statements, statistics
and answers to Congressional inquiries. His intimate knowledge of the
service, energy and capacity were recognized in June 1874, by his appointment
as Assistant Superintendent of Railway Mail Service. In 1875, he was assigned
to duty as Assistant General Superintendent, and when, in February 1876, Mr.
Bangs resigned to go into other business, Mr. Vail was appointed General
Superintendent. He had thus reached the highest grade in this branch of the
Federal employment. Mr. Vail was the youngest of the officers of the Railway
Mail Service, both in years and terms of service, and when the final
appointment was handed to him by Marshall Jewell, Postmaster General, the
latter said that his only objection to Mr. Vail was his youth.
As General Superintendent, Mr. Vail established upon a firm basis the civil
service policy, which had been initiated by Mr. Bangs. The superiority of
the results attained under the rules adopted for the railway mail service were
recognized by all the civil service commissions in Washington, to the extent
that until very recently the employis of the railway post offices were not
included in the general civil service laws and regulations. Mr. Vail
established the system of six months' probationary appointments, which have
since been so generally adopted. It was during the incumbency of Mr. Vail
that a reduction took place in the pay of the railroads for mail
transportation. In the controversy which followed, some of the railroads
threw the postal cars out of their trains. Within six months, however,
relations were re-established with all the leading lines and increased car and
train service obtained. Thereafter, more cordial relations existed between
the Post Office Department and the railroad managers.
An incident of this time may be referred to. Senator Beck of Kentucky was
much interested in having the southwestern mails go over Kentucky routes, and
made many efforts to induce the Postmaster General to order them so sent.
Being referred by the head of the Department to Mr. Vail, Mr. Beck accused
Mr. Vail of being under the influence of certain railroads. In an interview
with Mr. Beck, Mr. Vail explained the situation and gave the reasons which
governed him. Mr. Beck left apparently not satisfied. Soon after, however,
when a proposition to reduce Mr. Vail's pay was pending in the Senate,
Senator Beck took occasion to compliment Mr. Vail very highly, and, in a five
minutes speech, said that if there were an honest and efficient officer in the
employment of the Government, Mr. Vail was the man.
After the invention of the telephone and its reduction to practice, The
American Bell Telephone Co. was organized by Gardiner G. Hubbard, father in
law of Prof. Alexander G. Bell. Mr. Hubbard had been engaged against the
Post Office Department before Congress on the question of merchandise in the
mails and was chairman of the commission appointed by Congress to investigate
methods of payment to railroads for mail transportation. Believing Mr. Vail
to be the right man for the place, he tendered him the position of general
manager of The American Bell Telephone Co. Believing in the future of the
"toy," as it was then termed, and against the protest of all his friends, he
accepted the position in 1878 and devoted himself to the work with his
accustomed zeal and ability. The task was at times discouraging. The public
were slow to recognize the great value of the instrument, and strong
opposition was manifested by The Western Union Telegraph Co., which denied
that Professor Bell was the inventor and set up opposition exchanges at every
point. Mr. Vail introduced the methods which have proved so successful and
have resulted in The American Bell Telephone Co.'s phenomenal growth. A
settlement was finally effected with The Western Union Telegraph Co. after
years of fighting and negotiating, in which The Western Union conceded every
point of importance.
Mr. Vail established the long distance telephone service, against the
opposition of all his associates in the company. The first line which was
built to New York was called the "Vail's side show." He also introduced the
use of copper wire in telephone and telegraph lines, since so generally
adopted, having in this matter the assistance of Mr. Mason of Bridgeport,
whom he induced to experiment with drawing copper wire in such a way as to
give it the tensile strength necessary to withstand the stretching from pole
to pole.
In 1888, Mr. Vail retired from the telephone business after having occupied
the managing position for ten years. He has since traveled most of the time
abroad and has introduced the telephone in many countries. Farming in Vermont
now occupies a part of his time and upon his estate of 1,500 acres, called the
"Speedwell Farms," he raises French coach horses, including some of the finest
in the United States, Jersey cattle, Shropshire and Dorsett horned sheep, and
Welsh ponies. He is a member of the Union League club of New York and the
Algonquin club of Boston. He has one son, Davis R. Vail, a student in
Harvard Law School in Cambridge.
He died, 16 April 1920, in New York, NY.
America's Successful Men of Affairs: An Encyclopedia of Contemporaneous
Biography, Volume I, page 671-4
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