Yet it was a happy fortune, not only for the Bell Company but for the nation, that placed Vail at the head of this struggling enterprise.

There was a certain appropriateness in his selection, even then.

His granduncle, Stephen Vail, had built the engines for the first steamship to cross the Atlantic.

A cousin had worked with Morse while he was inventing the telegraph.

Vail, who was born in Carroll County, Ohio, in 1845, after spending two years as a medical student, suddenly shifted his plans and became a telegraph operator.