posted 11-21-2009 03:29 PM            

quote:

---

Utica Herald-Dispatch
November 15, 1907

TAKER OF FIRST CABLE MESSAGE DEAD IN BROOKLYN

New York. Nov. 15, 1907—William F. Shiebler, who received the first message over the Atlantic cable from Queen Victoria to President Buchanan on August 17. 1858, is dead of a complication of disease at his home. No. 753 Greene Avenue, Brooklyn. Mr. Shiebler was telegraph operator at the White House during the Civil War and received important messages for President Lincoln and Secretary of War Stanton. He saw Mr. Lincoln assassinated.

Since 1872, Mr. Shiebler had been in the Jewelry business with his brother, at No. 4 Maiden Lane, Manhattan. The firm is known as George W. Shiebler & Co. Mr. Shiebler was born in Baltimore, Md., on August 21, 1841. As a boy he entered a telegraph office in Washington, D. C. He soon became an expert. He was taken into the service of the Government in 1858. He was employed in the White House when the first Atlantic cable was laid after two other attempts had failed.

He received the message from Queen Victoria and handed it personally to President Buchanan. The message was: "Europe and America are united by telegraph. Glory to God in the highest; on earth peace and good will toward men" The message was sent from Valentin Ireland to Newfoundland and overland to Washington.

In Ford's Theater, in Washington, on April 14. 1865. Mr. Shiebler saw the firing of the shot by John Wilks Booth which killed President Lincoln. He rushed to the stage in an endeavor to prevent the assassin from getting away. He was handed the revolver with with which the President was killed and turned it over to a policeman.

Mr. Shiebler in 1872 married Alberta G. Barnes, a daughter of Judge Edgar H. Barnes, who now lives with his daughter, Mrs. C. D. Saunders, at No.[???] Greene Avenue, Brooklyn. She died ten years after, and he married her sister, Lilian M. Bates, who survives. He leaves two sons and two daughters, William E. Shiebler. Clarence M. Shiebler, Mrs. Lillian Woodcock and Miss. Elsie C. Shiebler.

---