American financier, born in North Adams, MA, on the 6th of February 1807. In early life he was engaged in the shoemaking trade and manufacture of machinery, but was interested in telegraphy, and when the latter became an established fact, Sibley, with a number of other businessmen, bought up the smaller lines and merged them into the Western Union Telegraph Company. In the face of powerful opposition he carried a bill through Congress securing a line to the Pacific Coast, and spent $3,000,000 in the construction of a telegraph line to Asia by way of Bering Strait, but gave up the enterprise on the successful completion of the laying of the Atlantic cable. His attention was also given to railway-building, salt and lumber manufacturing and seed-raising. He was a liberal giver to public and private charities, and was the founder of Sibley College of Mechanic Arts of Cornell University, and Sibley Hall of Rochester University. He died in Rochester, NY, on the 12th of July 1888.
