New York City commercial pleasure garden entrepeneur Frenchman Joseph Corré invited Richard Crosby to launch "his beautiful varnished Silk Balloon and Aeronautic Carriage" from his garden named Mount Vernon in 1800. For two weeks before the launching, Crosby lectured on "the science of aerostation" and invited the public "to see the curious process of filling the Balloon with inflammable air" at Mount Vernon Gardens.
The promotion worked. Numerous patrons flocked to the site, and a New York City newspaper assigned a reporter. "Last Monday, about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, a beautiful Balloon...was launched from Mount Vernon Gardens...The wind being light at N. it rose about 400 feet almost perpendicular; then took a southerly course and moved magnificently grand through the atmosphere, till it was fairly out of sight."
1783 Joseph & Étienne Montgolfier's Hot Air BalloonIn 1793, several founding fathers had watched the first man fly in a balloon over the new republic. Thirty-four-year-old Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard rose in an untethered hot air balloon from the courtyard of the prison in Philadelphia, then the nation's capital. Blanchard sold tickets to view the ascent for $2-5 each, but most chose to watch outside the confines of the prison grounds. Many watched the balloon from their upper story windows in Philadelphia.
1783 Joseph & Étienne Montgolfier's Hot Air Balloon Ten years before, as a result of experiments in Portugal & France, brothers Joseph & Étienne Montgolfier successfully launched a sheep, a cock, and a duck 1,500 feet in the basket of a hot-air balloon as Louis XVI & Marie Antoinette looked on. Soon Frenchmen were in the basket flying over Paris.
The daughter of John & Abigail Adams, Sarah Livingston Jay, saw the 1st ascent of the Montgolfier balloon in Paris, in 1783. Known as “Nabby,” she visited France in 1784, recording her impression of the balloon ascent. "September 19. To-day we went to see the balloon; it was to ascend from the garden of the Tuileries; we had tickets at a crown a person to go in. We left our carriage outside & went in; the garden I had never been in before; it is very large, & in general, elegant. there were eight or ten thousand persons present. This people are more attentive to their amusements than any thing else; however, as we were upon the same errand, it is unjust to reflect upon others, whose curiosity was undoubtedly as well founded. We walked a little, took a view of the company, & approached the balloon; it was made of taffetas & in the form of an egg, if both ends were large; this is what contains the air; below it is a gallery where are the adventurers & the ballast. At eleven it was moved from the place of its standing among the trees to an open situation, & the cords, which were held by some of the greatest men in the kingdom, were cut; it mounted in the air. It was some time in sight, as they had intended making some experiments upon their machine. At six in the evening it descended at Bevre, fifty leagues from Paris. At two o’clock the same day there was a storm of rain, with thunder & lightning, but they were not affected by it."
Blanchard was not making the very first ascension in the United States. Actually the first airborne American was 13-year-old Edward Warren, who in 1784, flew aloft in a tethered hot-air balloon constructed by Peter Carnes, a ladensburg, Maryland, lawyer & tavern owner.
A crowd had gathered at Howard Park in Baltimore, Maryland, as Carnes prepared to launch his balloon. Young Warren stepped out of the curious throng in Baltimore volunteering to ride the “splendid chariot” strung below the brightly colored silk balloon. Baltimore newspapers reported that he ascended “with the steady fortitude of an old voyager.” He “soared aloof” to the cheers of the crowd, “which he politely acknowledged by a significant wave of his hat.”
But Blanchard made the first unanchored air journey. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison were on hand for the lift off. Benjamin Franklin had died 3 years earlier, but had witnessed a balloon ascension in Paris and speculated that flight would “probably give a new turn to human affairs.” Now Blanchard was flying free and so was the fledgling nation.
1783 Joseph & Étienne Montgolfier's Hot Air Balloon“Anxiety for the safety of the Aeronaut was painted on every face,” reported Dunlap’s American Daily Advertiser. Then the crowd began cheering. “The Majestical sight,” noted the reporter, “was truly awe-full and interesting.” Blanchard reflected, after he descended in Gloucester County, New Jersey. “I could not help being surprised and astonished, when, elevated at a certain height over the city, I turned my eyes toward the immense number of people, which covered the open places, the roofs of the houses, the steeples, the streets and the roads, over which my flight carried me in the free space of the air. What a sight!”
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Prime bang up at Drumcondra, or a peep at the balloon. 1812 Pub by William McCleary
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