John B. Yale

John Brooks Yale (1845 – 1904) was an American telegraph and railroad entrepreneur, treasurer of the Yale Lock Company. He was an early founder and secretary-treasurer of the Bankers and Merchants Telegraph Company, competing against financier Jay Gould, the robber baron of the Western Union. They operated over 400 offices, and controlled about 100,000 miles of wiring across the country, including lines of the Chicago Board of Trade and the New York Stock Exchange.

Yale's company would be bankrupted by Gould's schemes, and be acquired by industrialist John W. Mackay, one of the Bonanza Kings, and be merged with the Postcal Telegraph Co.. Yale was also the son of Yale lock inventor Linus Yale Jr., and the son-in-law of millionaire Hugh McCulloch, the last U.S. Treasury Secretary of Abraham Lincoln.

Early life and education

Yale was born on October 26, 1845, in Newport, New York, to Linus Yale Jr. and Catherine Brooks, members of the Yale family. He was the brother of railroad entrepreneur Julian L. Yale, and craft artist Madeline Yale Wynne, who married to Senator Henry Winn.

Yale was educated at Eagleswood Military Academy in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Yale became Treasurer of the Yale Lock Company from 1867 to 1873, founded by his grandfather Linus Yale Sr., and father Linus Yale Jr.. Under the presidency of Henry R. Towne, Yale and Towne would build and scale the company into a global conglomerate, with thousands of employees.

In 1871, Yale is named of the trustees of the Rensselaer and Saratoga Railroad, with Congressman Joseph M. Warren, and Congressman John A. Griswold, of the Griswold family. In 1874, he cofounded and was made board director of the Timber Brook Railroad Company, along with his brother Julian L. Yale, and Gen. Edward A. Wild. The railroad would be 12 miles long, connecting New Jersey to the iron mines, and used to transport coal and iron ore. About 10 years later, Yale would be involved in the telegraph industry, mainly through the Bankers and Merchants Telegraph Company, by founding number of branches, and becoming board director, secretary, treasurer and shareholder. While the business was mostly owned and operated by bankers and merchants, it could also be used by the public. In the same year, Yale founded with four others the Bankers and Merchants Telegraph Co. of Detroit, building lines through Michigan, Columbus, Indianapolis, Chicago, Detroit, and other places.

In 1884, Yale joined the retail business Nave & McCord Mercantile Company of millionaire Nave McCord. He then became board director, secretary and treasurer of the Bankers and Merchants Telegraph Company, along with vice president John Rogers Hegeman, who was also president of MetLife Co., seated at the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower in Manhattan. They added various lines connecting to Detroit, Indianapolis, Cincinnati and St. Louis, and in 1884, they acquired and took control of the telegraph lines of the Chicago Board of Trade, operating in the landmarked Chicago Board of Trade Building. Another board director with Yale was inventor Stephen D. Field, nephew of pioneer Cyrus W. Field, and founder of the first electric railroad operated as a business. Field also challenged Thomas Edison's monopoly on stock exchange quotations.

In April 1884, Yale was elected Secretary of the Bankers and Merchants Telegraph Co., and the company had now 6,697 miles of poles, and 46,347 miles of wire, connecting New York all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic and the Missouri River. Yale was a friend and assistant of president Dimock, and would introduce, with other board directors, the second stock indicator of the Chicago Board of Trade, adding new telegraph lines, and challenging the monopoly of the Western Union. The Commercial Telegram Co. used the ticker tape technology, and broke the monopoly of the Gold and Stock Telegraph Co. of inventor Edward A. Calahan, on the New York Stock Exchange. The Bankers and Merchants Co. became quoted on the New York Stock Exchange, and in June 1884, the Panic of 1884 on Wall Street caused their stock price to fall from 119 to 45, bringing financial difficulties. The case would involve Attorney General of Illinois, Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, and the company would be reorganized. A main advantage of the Western Union was that its lines followed the railroads, which allowed them to reach all the minor cities. Mackay would die in 1902 with a fortune of about 50 to 100 million dollars, and his son would build the Harbor Hill estate on Long Island.

Later career Capt. Edmund Zalinski's dynamite gun, used and sold by Yale's company, the Pneumatic Dynamite Gun Co. The company owed Yale about $300,000 in 1885 as one of its trustees and shareholders, or about 650 million dollars in 2024 money in relation to GDP. The Bankers and Merchant's initial capital stock in 1881 was at 3 million, the American Rapid at 4, and the Postal Telegraph Co. at 21. Yale's company had initially 4,000 miles of lines and 23,200 miles of wires, with debt of about 7,5 million. The 50 feet Dynamite gun was built at the West Point Foundry in Cold Spring, and was used as an artillery weapon using air to propel projectiles made of dynamite. The 65 miles railroad would run over New York Central to Poughkeepsie, Aneram, Hartford, Boston, Springfield, Maine, and other places.

Personal life The last moments of Abraham Lincoln on April 15, 1865, with Yale's father-in-law, Hugh McCulloch, at the bed's end on the left, with Mary T. Lincoln, Capt. Robert T. Lincoln, Salmon P. Chase and surgeon Charles Leale Yale married to Marie Louise McCulloch, daughter of millionaire banker Hugh McCulloch, the Secretary of the Treasury of Abraham Lincoln, and two other presidents. Yale's wife inherited the Holly Hills Farm from her father, with its 350 acres of land and $100,000 in improvements, near Hyattsville, Maryland. She was a correspondent of Assistant Secretary Alvey A. Adee. She was also a socialite with cabinet members of the White House, and with Miss Benjamin Odell, Governor of New York, as well as with other debutantes.

Yale's brother-in-law, banker Charles McCulloch, became president of the Hamilton National bank, and lived at the McColloch mansion in Fort Wayne. Yale's mother-in-law died at his home in Sparkill, New York, and he himself died at the same place on August 28, 1904, at 58 years old. Mrs. McCulloch was a grandniece of Naphtali Daggett, President of Yale College, and a family member of Gen. Moores, Gen. Melanchton Woolsey, Congressman Jonas Platt, and Alida Livingston, of the Schuyler and Livingston families.

Yale had one daughter named Mattiray Yale, and the family lived on Fifth Avenue in New York. Yale was also a member of the abolitionist Union League Club of New York, along with his brother Julian L. Yale and the Roosevelts, who were officers of the club, namely Theodore Roosevelt as a vice-president, and his uncle James A. Roosevelt as board director.