Though Ezra Cornell was almost destitute just the year before, his position began to turn around in 1854.That year he managed to bring back one of his bankrupt companies, which he renamed the New York and Western Union Telegraph Co., a fierce competitors with the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Co., organized by Hiram Sibley of Rochester. By 1855 both groups finally agreed that they should consolidate. At Cornell's insistence, the merged company was named the Western Union Telegraph Co. Western Union rapidly expanded operations to most parts of the United States and Canada.

While Cornell now took a less active role, he continued to have great faith in the telegraph and held on to his Western Union stock; for more than 15 years, Cornell was the company's largest stockholder. Though he probably didn't realize it then, from this time onward, Cornell no longer had to struggle financially. Yet back home in Ithaca, his wife, Mary Ann, was ready to leave Ithaca. She wrote on June 7, 1855:

"I wish if money is plenty at the west that you would send me some, as Alonzo [their eldest son] is so hard up that I can't get any of him, and I can't well get along without some. ... I can't well get along without some ... I think Ithaca will not hold me long ... if your business keeps you there, there is nothing in Ithaca worth living for, and I wish you would sell everything you own here ... but if you do come here and try living as I have this thirteen years and then you would be able to judge something about it."

June 10, 1855. Ezra wrote back to his wife:

"I will pay your expenses out, that is to say, if you can get some body to advance your expenses out I will refund the money."

But Mary Ann did not move west, and the Cornells' financial status would continue to improve.

Adapted by Susan S. Lang from the Web site, "Invention and Enterprise: Ezra Cornell, a Nineteenth-Century Life."