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BIOGRAPHIES
Source:
History of Carroll and Harrison Counties, Ohio
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Vol. II -
Under the Editorial Supervision of Judge H. J. Eckley
- Illustrated
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Published by The Lewis Publishing Company - Chicago and New York
1921
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THEODORE N. VAIL.
Of distinguished Americans who were native sons of Carroll County one was
the late Theodore N. Vail, who as chief executive of the American
Telephone and Telegraph Company was head of the largest telephone system in
the world. He was not only its nominal head but was from the first the
genius that promoted the popular use of the telephone, was the first to
establish long distance communalization by telephone, and when past seventy
yeas of age was still the initiative head of a system that numbered nine
million telephone subscribers and represented an investment of a billion and
a half dollars.
He was born in Carroll County, Ohio, July 16, 1845, a
son of Davis and Phoebe (Quinby) Vail. Four years after his
birth his parents moved to Morristown, New Jersey, where he was educated at
the old Academy, and for a time studied medicine. Subsequently, in
view of his distinguished services, he was honored with the Doctor of Laws
degrees by Dartmouth, Middlebury College, Princeton University and Harvard.
Abandoning medicine through his interest in the telegraphy, he became an
operator and was employed on the Union Pacific Railroad in Wyoming in 1868,
soon after the opening of the first transcontinental railway. In 1873
he was appointed assistant superintendent in the railway mail service at
Washington, and served as assistant general superintendent in 1874 and as
general superintendent from 1875 to 1878. In 1878, two yeas after the
telephone instrument was demonstrated as a commercial achievement, he became
identified with that business and in the next ten yeas did much to
popularize and extend its use. There was a period form 1887 when
impaired health compelled him to seek recreation in travel, and from 1893 to
1896 he was a Vermont farmer. In 1896 he went south to Argentine,
South America, and was engaged in the promotion of electrical enterprises,
introducing American electric system of street railways to Buenos Ayers and
telephone systems in principal cities. In 1907 Mr. Vail was
elected president of the American Telegraph & Telephone Company, and
continued as its chief executive officer until his death on April 16, 1920.
For many years he called his home the farm community in
Vermont known as Lyndonville. He was a member of many learned and
technical societies, both in this country and abroad, and altogether was one
of the most constructive men of business produced in his age.
Source: History of Carroll and Harrison Counties,
Ohio - Chicago: Lewis Pub. Co., 1921 - Vol. II - Page 781 |
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