He served as a doctor at the Western Military Institute, where he became friends with future presidential candidate James Blaine, who was an instructor there.

[8] He was appointed to supervise the construction of a federal customs house and post office in Louisville in 1853.

[5] There he worked on the consolidation of many telegraph companies, culminating with the formation of Western Union in 1866, where he was named vice president.

[7] He stayed at Western Union for the rest of his life, except for three years when he returned to politics in Kentucky, being nominated to run for U.S.

[9] He, along with others including Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, formed the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1884; he was its first president.