 He was educated at the local academy in Binghamton, New York, where he was awarded a scholarship prize and a warrant as an assistant engineer in the United States Navy in 1852.He was Third Assistant Engineer on the frigate USS "Mississippi", flagship of Commodore Matthew Perry's historic expedition to Japan from 1852 to 1855, which opened up that nation to the world for the first time.In 1857, now Second Assistant Engineer, he was ordered to the frigate USS "Susquehanna", which was involved in the first, albeit unsuccessful, attempt to lay a transatlantic telegraph cable across the Atlantic Ocean, from Newfoundland to Ireland.