Charles A. Cheever

Charles Augustus Cheever (September 7, 1852 – May 2, 1900) was an American businessman and inventor. Associated with Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison, he improved their inventions. He patented 100 of these improvements, most related to the telephone. Cheever formed the Telephone Company of New York and constructed the first telephone line in New York City. He was disabled early in his life and was an invalid.

Charles A. Cheever
Charles A. Cheever
Born(1852-09-07)September 7, 1852
Boston, Massachusetts
DiedMay 2, 1900(1900-05-02) (aged 47)
New York City
NationalityAmerican
OccupationBusinessman and inventor
Known forAssociated with Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison and improved their inventions
The Okonite Company on Park Row
Medal of Progress awarded to The Telephone Company of New York at the American Institute Fair in New York City in 1877. This was the first such medal ever awarded to a telephone company.

Early life

Cheever was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on September 7, 1852. His parents moved to New York when he was around five years old.[1] His father was John Haven Cheever, president of New York Belting and Packing company, and his mother was Anna Elizabeth (Nee Dow) Cheever.[2] He was paralyzed from his waist down at an early age.[3] Cheever was about 4 feet (1.2 m) in height and weighed only 70 pounds (32 kg) as an adult. He had to be carried around by a male assistant all the time.[3]

Mid life

Cheever became a successful businessman and entrepreneur.[4][5] He was a successful inventor of many items run by electricity and was able to turn them into business enterprises. He patented electric rock drills, electrical improvements to elevators, telephone appliances and electric fire engines. Of his 100 patents most were telephone improvements. Cheever was also intrigued with Edison's phonograph. He helped form the North American Phonograph Company[6] and organized firms throughout the United States to promote Edison's advanced commercial version of it.[1]

Cheever became acquainted with Bell when his invention of the telephone was in its infancy and considered nothing but a novelty item. He was intrigued with it. Cheever went about figuring out how Bell's invention could be useful and beneficial. He constructed and owned the first telephone line in New York City.[1] It was wired from where he lived at 89 Fifth avenue to where E. N. Dickerson lived on Thirty-fourth street.[7] That wired connection showed potential of greater uses for the telephone. Cheever then experimented with a telephone line from his office in the Tribune Building with one to the American Institute Fair to demonstrate commercial usage. He showed the quality of the sound traveling on telephone lines to be good by demonstrating the playing of the band at the Fair reproduced at his office.[1]

Cheever organized and formed the Telephone Company of New York with Hilborne Lewis Roosevelt as his business partner using a capital of about $20,000 (equivalent to $480,000 in 2019) to start the enterprise on August 31, 1877.[8][9][10] They started with one customer at first, J. Lloyd Haigh, the wire manufacturer for the cables for the Brooklyn Bridge.[11] Cheever's telephone company strung only separate lines and had no central switchboard office.[12] They had trouble at first getting customers to subscribe to their telephone service and lost over $70,000 (equivalent to $1,855,000 in 2019) in their first year of operation mainly due to maintenance they couldn't cover with their few paying customers they had.[3] The Cheever firm went out of business within a year and it was followed in 1878 with the Bell Company of New York that had 900 paying customers by August 1879.[11]

Later life and death

Cheever formulated a practical way of communicating telegraph messages from moving trains through induction telegraphy. He conducted successful experiments on trains of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad. The concept did not prove to be commercially profitable and was not pursued further.[13] Cheever founded the Okonite company, a wire and cable manufacturer that used rubber insulation, since he already owned part of his father's rubber company and combined the technologies to come up with insulated wire.[14] He was also associated with various real estate developments like Wave Crest and Cedarhurst at Far Rockaway, New York.[15] Cheever retired from business in 1897 and died on May 2, 1900, in Far Rockaway after suffering heart complications.[16] He never married and was commodore of the New York Yacht Club. At the time of his death his parents were still living, as was two brothers and two sisters.[1][5]

References
  1. "Death of Charles A. Cheever". Western Electrician. 26 (1–26): 722. 1900. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
  2. "New York Telephone Company". Congressional Record. 113 (30): A132. 1967. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
  3. Spillane, Richard (March 16, 1913). "Romances of the Business World". Times-Democrat. New Orleans – via newspapers.com .
  4. "An Invalid's Life Work". New-York Tribune – page 2. New York City. May 3, 1900 – via newspapers.com .
  5. "A Remarkable Plan". The St Johnsbury Caledonian -page 3. St Johnsbury, Vermont. May 16, 1900 – via newspapers.com .
  6. "Personal". Record of the Times. Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. May 28, 1878. p. 3 – via newspapers.com .
  7. "Obituary / Charles A. Cheever". The Electrical World and Engineer. 35 (19): 722. 1900. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
  8. "First Telephones in New York". Bell Telephone News. 3 (2): 13. 1913. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
  9. Leonard 1910, p. 463.
  10. W. F. Crowell (1918). "Pioneer Struggle of the Telephone". State Service - An Illustrated Monthly Magazine. 2 (1): 14. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
  11. "Montana Joins in Celebrating Golden Anniversary of Telephone Onvention and Organization of World's Greatest Public Utility". The Independent-Record. Helena, Montana. March 14, 1926 – via newspapers.com .
  12. "Million Telephones in New York City". Monmouth Democrat. Freehold, New Jersey. June 8, 1922 – via newspapers.com .
  13. "Telegraphing From An Express Train Going at the Rate of Sixty Miles An Hour". St. Joseph Weekly Gazette. St. Joseph, Missouri. November 24, 1887. p. 9 – via newspapers.com .
  14. Johnson 1901, p. 405.
  15. "Cedarhurst". Brooklyn Daily Eagle -page 14. Brooklyn, New York. August 12, 1888 – via newspapers.com .
  16. "Obituary – Long Island". Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Brooklyn, New York. May 3, 1900 – via newspapers.com .

Sources
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