Moses Taylor holds an interest in the New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company founded by Cyrus West Field in 1854.

Although its attempts to lay a cable across the Atlantic were initially unsuccessful, it eventually succeeds and in 1866 becomes the first transatlantic telegraph company.

After the Civil War, during which he had assisted the Union with financing the war debt, he continues to invest in iron, railroads, and real estate.

His real estate holdings in New York bring him into close association with Boss Tweed of New York's Tammany Hall.

Moses Taylor’s parents were Jacob B. Taylor and Martha (Brant) Taylor.

His father had been a close associate of John Jacob Astor and had acted as his agent by purchasing New York real estate while concealing Astor's interest.

Astor's relationship with the Taylor family had provided Moses with an early advantage.

Moses had begun his career at age fifteen at J. D. Brown shippers, but had soon moved to a clerk's position in the firm of G. G. & S. Howland Company of New York, a shipping and import firm that traded with South America.

By 1832, at age twenty-six, Moses had accumulated sufficient wealth to marry, leave the Howland company, and start his own business as a sugar broker.

As a sugar broker, Moses dealt with Cuban sugar growers, found buyers for their product, exchanged currency, and advised and assisted them with their investments.

Although he never visited Cuba, Taylor's friendship with Henry Augustus Coit, a prominent trader who was fluent in Spanish, had allowed him to trade with the Cuban growers.

Taylor had soon discovered that loans and investments provided returns that were as good as, or better than, those from the sugar business.

By the 1840s, his income was largely from interest and investments.

By 1847, Moses Taylor was listed as one of New York City's 25 millionaires.

When the Panic of 1837 allowed Astor to take over what was then City Bank of New York (Citibank), he had named Moses Taylor as director.

Taylor himself had doubled his fortune during the panic, and brought his growing financial connections to the bank.

He had acquired equity in the bank and in 1855 had become its president, operating it largely in support of his and his associates' businesses and investments.

In the 1850s, Taylor had invested in iron and coal, and had begun purchasing interest in the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western railroad.

When the Panic of 1857 brought the railroad to the brink of bankruptcy, Moses had obtained control by purchasing its outstanding shares for five dollars a share.

Within seven years, the shares had become worth two hundred and forty collars, and the D. L. & W had become one of the premier railroads of the country.

By 1865, Taylor was holding twenty thousand shares worth almost fifty million dollars.

Cyrus West Field and the Atlantic Telegraph Company are behind the construction of the first transatlantic telegraph cable.

The project, which had begun in 1857, had been completed on August 5, 1858.

The cable had functioned for only three weeks, but it was the first such project to yield practical results.

The first official telegram to pass between two continents had been a letter of congratulation from Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom to the President of the United States James Buchanan on August 16.

Signal quality had declined rapidly, slowing transmission to an almost unusable speed.

The cable had been destroyed the following month when Wildman Whitehouse applied excessive voltage to it while trying to achieve faster operation. (It has been argued that the faulty manufacture, storage and handling of the 1858 cable would have led to premature failure in any case.)

The cable's rapid failure had undermined public and investor confidence and delayed efforts to restore a connection.

On the failure of the expedition, despite much-improved material, to lay the second cable in 1865, a third company had been formed to raise the capital for a further attempt, the Anglo-American Telegraph Company.

The next expedition in 1866 is a success, also succeeding in recovering the lost second cable when, on his return to Newfoundland, Field grapples the cable he had attempted to lay the previous year and which had parted in mid-ocean, and reattaches it to new wire, thus allowing for a second, backup wire for communication.

The completed connection is put into service on July 28, 1866, and generates revenues of £1000 in its first day of operation.

The approximate price to send a telegram is: one word, one mile (1.6 km)= $0.0003809.

This cable will prove more durable.