Marshall Lefferts

Marshall Lefferts

Marshall Lefferts (born January 15, 1821 in Bedford , Long Island , † July 3, 1876 in Newark ) was an American engineer and colonel during the American Civil War .

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Marshall Lefferts received general education at a county school. At 15 he worked as an employee in a hardware store. Lefferts later worked for John S. Stoddard in the survey of Brooklyn and was soon promoted to assistant engineer. Three years later he was employed by import company Morewood & Company . There Lefferts became a partner within three years and was managing manager until 1852. Then he dealt with iron production and the improvement and import of galvanized iron.

Lefferts introduced zinc-coated wire from England for US telegraphy . This is how he met Alexander Bain and became interested in his chemical telegraph . In 1850, telegraph lines were established from New York City to Boston and from New York to Buffalo . The New York, New England and New York State Telegraph Companies were founded, of which Lefferts was president from 1849 to 1860. After founding the New York and New England Union Telegraph Company , his presidency ended. In 1861 he was hired as an electrical engineer by the American Telegraph Company . He was the first to use measuring instruments to detect electrical interference. After the merger of the American Telegraph Company with the Western Union Telegraph Company in 1866, Lefferts initially worked as an engineer, but soon organized the Commercial News Department until 1869 . In March 1870 he finally became president of the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company .

In 1851 Lefferts began his service with the 7th New York Regiment as a private . A year later he was appointed lieutenant colonel . In 1859 Lefferts was promoted to colonel . In 1863 he was Frederick's Military Governor during the American Civil War . With his unit he was involved in the suppression of the draft riots in July 1863. In June 1866, Lefferts retired from active service and became commandant of the Veterans Corps of the 7th New York Regiment.

On June 4, 1845, he married Mary Allen, a daughter of New York banker Gilbert Allen. One of her sons is the doctor George Morewood Lefferts (1846–1920).

proof

• James Parton [et al.]: Sketches of men of progress . Greer, Cincinnati 1870-1871, pp. 661-668, Textarchiv - Internet Archive .
• Lefferts, Marshall . In: James Grant Wilson, John Fiske (Eds.): Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography . tape 3 : Grinnell - Lockwood . D. Appleton and Company, New York 1887, p. 677 (English, Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
• The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography: Being the History of the United States . Volume 10. White, New York 1909, p. 243, Textarchiv - Internet Archive .