Memorial Record of Western Kentucky, Lewis Publishing Company, 1904,
pp 556-559 [McCracken]

     JOHN BOYD SLEETH, who is better known in Paducah as Captain
Jack Sleeth, was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, November 21, 1826,
and died in Paducah, Kentucky, March 12, 1895.  In early life he
left home to engage in boating, and readily found employment on one
of the many boats which in those early days plied along the Ohio
river.  Finally he reached Paducah, Kentucky, and there took up his
residence.
     In 1845 a telegraphic system had been established at Paducah,
and the entire country was excited over the freely expressed opinion
of Professor Morse relative to a cable.  Mr. Tal. Shafner was
actively engaged in experiments as to the possibility of such a
feat, endeavoring to connect St. Louis and Nashville by means of an
overhead wire across the Ohio and Tennessee rivers.  Mr. Sleeth was
employed by Mr. Shafner, who afterwards played so important a part
in the laying of the Atlantic cable, and assisted in stretching the
telegraphic wire from one side of the river to the other, the center
support being a tall staff attached to the top of a large hickory
tree standing on an island separating the mouth of the Tennessee
river from the Ohio.  The weight of the wire caused it to sag so at
flood stages of the waters that the taller, stacked steamers would
catch and pull down the wire.  Young Sleeth, who had some knowledge
of the principles of insulation, conceived the idea of laying an
insulated wire across the river bed.  His idea was received with
considerable skepticism by Mr. Shafner and others, but finally Mr.
Shafner consented to make the attempt.  With an ample supply of the
wires then used for telegraphic lines on hand, the work of laying
the first submarine cable began, and the result came after nearly a
year.  The wire chosen for use as the cable proper was one strand,
and it was stretched along the float and wrapped first with canvas
such as was then used for roofing steamers, and which had been
thoroughly soaked in hot coal tar pitch.  The covering process was
continued until the wire was about half an inch in diameter and then
it was guarded by a wire of a smaller size, this being placed
parallel, as in now the custom.  It was then wrapped by loose coil
with another wire of the same size.  The number of wires laid
parallel to the cable outside of the canvas insulation was eighteen. 
The cable was made in sections and joined before being laid.  This
cable was over a mile long and when laid was reeled off from the end
of a large "broadbow" boat in tow of a steamer craft.  It worked
successfully for several weeks; then the pitch became water-soaked
and failed to operate successfully, and the cable was abandoned, but
the idea had proved practical, the difficulty lying in the poor
insulation.  Some months later Mr. Field sent a representative to
Paducah to see Mr. Sleeth, and an offer was made him to continue his
investigations and enter into a partnership.  As Mr. Sleeth was then
in very moderate circumstances he was forced to decline this very
flattering offer.  He resumed boating, soon after being made captain
of a Tennessee river steamer.  He never patented his cable or made
any attempt to do so, but abandoned it entirely after the first
failure.  Nevertheless he gave to the world the demonstrated idea
that it was possible to connect by a link of wires distant lands,
separated by water, and to encircle the globe with a message within
forty minutes without any special effort.  The submarine cable, the
idea of which was conceived by Mr. Sleeth and under his direction
laid at Paducah, was the forerunner of the world's great system of
submarine cables.
     Captain Sleeth was engaged in boating until the Civil war, when
he enlisted in the Confederate army and served under General Roddy,
gaining the rank of captain during the war.  After the conflict was
over he went back to the river and became one of the very best
known, competent and popular of western steamboat captains, although
his life was principally spent upon the Tennessee river.  Until
within one year of his demise Captain Sleeth was engaged in his
work, and he left behind him a record of which his family may well
feel proud, while his estate was a large one, accumulated by his
untiring efforts.  In his happy home Captain Sleeth was always a
kind and loving husband and father; in the city of Paducah he was
universally respected, and with men of his own calling his
experience made him a man of great esteem.
     In 1867 Mr. Sleeth married Margaret McGaugh of Mt. Hope,
Alabama, who is still living, aged fifty-five years, a lady of much
refinement and culture.  The children born to Captain and Mrs.
Sleeth were: John Sleeth, who died young; James Porter Sleeth, who
is a well known business man of the city, educated in the Paducah
public schools and the Louisville College of Pharmacy, from which he
was graduated in 1901, after which he purchased the drug
establishment of E. H. Gilson at the corner of Ninth and Broadway,
and is now engaged in conducting this concern.  James P. Sleeth
married, in January, 1903, Miss Sue Janes, daughter of William
Janes, a well known real estate agent of Paducah.
     Robert Sleeth, a brother of our subject and resident to
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has a record from Mr. Field, of New York,
stating that he obtained the idea of a submarine cable from Jack
Sleeth, of Paducah, Kentucky, to whom he had sent a representative
while he was residing in Paducah, to get this same idea, and this
record Mr. Sleeth values very highly as it is to a certain degree a
slight recognition of his brother's great service to science and
civilization.

Sleeth Morse Shafner Field Roddy McGaugh Gilson Janes
=
PA TN AL

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