John William Mackay

John William MacKay BIRTH 28 Nov 1831 Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland DEATH 20 Jul 1902 (aged 70) London, City of London, Greater London, England BURIAL Green-Wood Cemetery Brooklyn, Kings County (Brooklyn), New York,

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/2472/john-william-mackay

Businessman. A mining magnate and transatlantic cable-layer, he developed the Big Bonanza Silver Mine in Nevada in the 1860s, and the famous Comstock Lode beginning in 1869.

Children John William MacKay 1870–1895

Photo Clarence Hungerford Mackay 1874–1938

John William Mackay (November 28, 1831-July 20, 1902) was an American capitalist, born in Dublin, Ireland. He was an American miner and business leader, controlled the richest ground in the Comstock mining area of Nevada and founded the Postal Telegraph Company.

Early years

His parents brought him in 1840 to New York City, where he worked in a shipyard.

Gold mining

In 1851 he went to California and worked in placer gold-mines in Sierra County. In 1859 he went to Virginia City, Nevada, and there, after losing all he had made in California, he formed a business partnership with fellow Irishmen James Graham Fair, James C. Flood, and William S. O'Brien. The four dealt in mining stocks and operated silver mines on the Comstock Lode, and in 1873 discovered the great ore body known as the "big bonanza" in the Consolidated Virginia and California mine, an orebody more than 1,200 feet deep, which yielded in March of that year as much as $3,876 per ton (America: Past & Present, Vol. II, pg. 497)[vague], and in 1877 nearly $190,000,000 altogether. The four-way partnership, although formally called "Flood and O'Brien," was more commonly known as the Bonanza firm. Together they also established the Bank of Nevada in San Francisco.

Marriage

In 1866, he married Marie Louise Hungerford, a native New Yorker. Snubbed by New York society, Louise moved to Paris where Mackay purchased a large mansion for her where his wealth enabled her to became a noted society hostess, entertaining royalty and throwing lavish parties for two decades.

Communications Companies

In 1884, with James Gordon Bennett, Jr., Mackay formed the Commercial Cable Company — largely to fight Jay Gould and the Western Union Telegraph Company — laid two transatlantic cables, and forced the toll-rate for transatlantic messages down to twenty-five cents a word. In connection with the Commercial Cable Company, he formed in 1886 the Postal Telegraph Company as a domestic wire telegraph company so that Commercial would not need to rely on Western Union to collect and distribute telegraphic messages. Until Mackay and Bennett entered the field, all submarine cable traffic between the United States and Europe went over cables owned by the American financier Jay Gould. A rate war followed that took almost two years to conclude. Jay Gould finally quit trying to run John Mackay out of business. He was quoted as saying, "You can't beat Mackay, all he has to do when he needs money is go to Nevada and dig up some more".

Once Mackay had conquered the Atlantic with the Commercial Cable Company and the vast land mass of North America with the Postal Telegraph Company he turned his sights on laying the first cable across the Pacific. He subsequently formed the Commercial Pacific Cable Company in secret partnership with the Great Northern Telegraph Company and the Eastern Telegraph Company and although he died in 1902 before this part of his vision was completed, his son Clarence Mackay, saw the project through to completion between 1904 and 1906. Commercial Pacific operated a cable line from San Francisco to Manila, Philippines, via Hawaii and Guam, with a subsequent spur that went from Manila to Shanghai, China.

The Mackay System expanded under Clarence H. Mackay's leadership, acquiring several other entities including the Federal Telegraph Company, its radio stations and research laboratories, in 1927. In 1928, the entire system was bought out by Sosthenes Behn's International Telephone and Telegraph. ITT organized the Postal Telegraph & Cable Corporation as a shell to acquire and control the Mackay System on May 18, 1928. Though plagued with financial troubles during the Great Depression, the Mackay System continued to be the chief rival of Western Union until 1943. In March of that year, Congress authorized an amendment (Section 222) to the Communications Act of 1934 permitting the merger of the domestic operations of telegraph companies (clearing the way for Western Union to acquire Postal Telegraph). By May 1943 a merger plan had been put together, which the FCC approved by September, and the merger was complete by October 1943. The international communications (cable and radio) parts of the Mackay system remained with ITT.

Philanthropy

Mackay was famous for fair dealings with his employees, and gave generously, especially to the charities of the Roman Catholic Church, and endowed the Catholic orphan asylum in Virginia City, Nevada. In June 1908 the Mackay School of Mines was presented to the University of Nevada, as a memorial to him, by his widow and his son, Clarence H. Mackay. A statue of John Mackay by Gutzon Borglum stands in front of the mining building on the university campus in Reno, Nevada.

Death

Mackay died on July 20, 1902 in London. He was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery, in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York. The Mackay Mountains in Antarctica were named after him. His son, Clarence Hungerford Mackay, is buried in the same cemetery.