As a boy, he played around the first telegraph line, and learned to put messages on the wire.

His favorite toy was a little telegraph that he constructed for himself.

At twenty-two he went West, in the vague hope of possessing a bonanza farm; then he swung back into telegraphy, and in a few years found himself in the Government Mail Service at Washington.

By 1876, he was at the head of this Department, which he completely reorganized.

He introduced the bag system in postal cars, and made war on waste and clumsiness.