Mackay

Mackay, last name of father John William (1831–1902) and son Clarence Hungerford (1874–1938), both U.S. businesspeople. With wealth gained from his interests in the Comstock lode, one of the largest gold and silver mines in Nevada, John William developed the Postal Telegraph Cable Company (1886), breaking Western Union's monopoly. Clarence Hungerford, business partner with his father and subsequent director of Postal Telegraph, developed transoceanic cable communications between the United States and the Far East (1904), Cuba (1907), and both Southern and Northern Europe. The Mackay telegraph and cable companies were combined with Western Union Telegraph Company in 1943.