French Cable Station - Orleans, MA
Posted by: 
Lat34North
N 41° 47.271 W 069° 59.256
19T E 417937 N 4626693
French – Atlantic cable company Cape Cod station 1890 – 1959. Oldest cable on Atlantic bed. Located at the old cable station, 41 S Orleans Rd, Orleans, MA.
Waymark Code: WMMJZF
Location: Massachusetts, United States
Date Posted: 09/30/2014
Views: 3
Source: Most of the text below came from the
French Cable Museum Web site. Some text was added for clarification.
This station when it was in operation was the American termination point for a telegraph cable that came directly to Orleans, MA, from Deolen, France (near Brest). It was called "Le Direct" the direct cable. It was installed in 1898 and was almost 3200 miles long.
The first French Cable was installed in 1869 and landed in Duxbury Ma. It had been routed through St Pierre Island near Newfoundland. Duxbury was a very busy shipping area and not suitable as a place for submarine cable. A lot of damage occurred from fishing and shipping operations.
A new French Cable was laid in 1879 to North Eastham at Nauset Light and a two story station was built there. North Eastham was an isolated area and difficult to reach in bad weather. The current building in Orleans was built in 1891. A cable was spliced to the end of the existing cable at Naauset light and run through the Salt Pond Inlet to the new building in Orleans. The equipment and men were moved to the new building in the same year.
Testing Room
This room contains equipment that was used to determine the location of a fault or break in the cable. Some of the equipment is still operational and can be demonstrated.
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| The device in the center (above the ruler) of the table is a Wheatstone bridge used to calculate the distance to where the undersea cable was broken.
| Heurtley Magnifier used to amplify the weak signal coming from France. There are only three in existence in the world today. |
Repair Room
This is the room that held the equipment used to repair the cable and equipment. There are samples of the early submarine telegraph cable and cables that have been under the sea for decades displayed in this room.
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| Desk in the repair room | A piece of the original 1858 Transatlantic Cable donated to the museum by Elizabeth Dyer Haskell. |
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| Samples of submarine telegraph cable. |
Operations Room
This was where the messages from France were received, recorded, and retransmitted to rest of the country. Most of the equipment still functions and can be demonstrated.
The museum is open for tours. See their web site for the scheduled hours.
French Cable Museum planning a visit.
Hours of operation
JULY & AUGUST:
Thursday through Sunday 1 PM to 4PM
JUNE & SEPTEMBER:
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday 1 PM to 4 PM
More information:
French Cable Station
Wheatstone bridge
The Heurtley Magnifier