Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
A 19th-century pioneer way ahead of his time
Former Montco resident dedicates life to pursue ‘... things that everybody said could not be done’
A Montco resident dedicated his life to pursue “... things that everybody said could not be done.”
Four a.m. is a strange time to begin a balloon flight, but on April 20, 1861, at that early pre-dawn hour, former Montgomery County resident Thaddeus Lowe, still wearing his tuxedo from the previous evening’s formal dinner, climbed into the basket of his airship and sailed off into the dark night skies above Cincinnati, Ohio.
Lowe’s flight was not a crazy after-party stunt. It was an experiment. His destination was the East Coast as a scientifically designed test run to prove that a hot air balloon could successfully cross the Atlantic Ocean from America to Europe.
Born in Jefferson, N.H., on Aug. 29, 1832, Lowe had been fascinated with balloons since his was a small boy and dreamed of becoming an aeronaut.
Although the budding scientist and inventor had no advanced formal education, he was, like Abraham Lincoln, a voracious reader and largely self-taught.
His career began by accident. At the age of 18 he attended a lecture on lighter-thanair gases. The lecturer was so impressed by his enthusiasm that he offered to take Lowe on tour with him as his assistant. After two years, the touring assistant became a touring lecturer, making his way here and there around the country, speaking to audiences and beguiling them with clever demonstrations.
In an Ohio town, the beguiler became the beguiled, when he was smitten by the sight of a beautiful young woman in the audience. His love object was the young actress Leontine Gachon, a native Parisian, whose father brought his family to America after the overthrow of French monarch Louis Phillipe. It was a made-for-Hollywood case of mutual love at first sight, and after a whirlwind courtship of a week they were married Feb. 14, 1855.
Off they went together and eventually joined a troupe of more than 100 entertainers on a showboat on the Mississippi River. The tour ended in New Orleans and slowly the Lowes traveled to New England.
Even with a wife and the couple’s roving entertaining lifestyle, Lowe was determined to become an aeronaut with his own balloon. It only took little more than year of saving to buy one and transform his dream into a reality.
Now the lecturer became the pilot of his airship and built a reputation as an expert flier as he again toured from town to town, giving exhibitions and taking folks up in the air with him.
The young inventor-scientist-aeronaut had discovered that when he ascended high enough he entered an easterly flowing air current that was, in his opinion, strong enough to carry a balloon across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe.
In Hoboken, N.J., Lowe constructed a balloon capable of doing that, with a bag large enough to hold 500,000 cubic feet of hydrogen. His efforts attracted the attention of scientists at Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute who secured the financial backing for this elaborate expedition.
Investors were found but, despite a successful test run from Philadelphia to Atlantic City, N.J., the men hesitated. To convince them would require a longer flight. Lowe’s next step was to consult with Joseph Henry, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., who was hailed as America’s outstanding scientist.
At Henry’s suggestion, Lowe took one of his smaller balloons to Cincinnati, intent on flying back to the East Coast, a distance of about 900 miles, depending on where he landed.
Lowe arrived in Cincinnati near the end of March 1861. His balloon was inflated and everything made ready for a quick departure for which he needed the wind’s cooperation. The winds were reluctant, keeping the expedition grounded for several weeks.
The balloonist’s coming experiment and his plans for a transoceanic flight were publicized in many newspapers, so that Lowe was lionized and feted by the Queen City’s inhabitants.
On the night of April 19, he was the guest of honor at a banquet during which word came that the winds were blowing hard. Instant action followed. With no time to change clothes, Lowe went to the balloon in his formal evening attire. Provisions consisted of, in Lowe’s words, “quantities of delicacies from the banquet table,” and a “large jug of hot coffee” swaddled in layers of blankets.
Lowe continued, “When I was already, still wearing my long silk hat and clad in my broadcloth sack coat…” the lines were cast off and he rose slowly into the night sky. There was a breeze blowing from the east as the balloon climbed, so that it was last seen heading to the northwest, the exact opposite of the intended direction. This development gave the usually confident Lowe a jolt and he confessed that “my feelings could hardly
be analyzed.”
“This was the test,” he wrote, and “My reputation was at stake.” In his mind, the eyes of the entire country were upon him.
He didn’t have long to worry because at a height of a little more than a mile he “shot out of the westerly currents and entered the great easterly river of the sky.” His vindication brought a spirit of triumph and he “could have cheered in (his) elation.”
As well as food and extra clothing, Lowe had a barometer and altimeter that allowed him to keep track of the balloon’s altitude. According to his account, at one point the air currents carried him as high as 18,000 feet where, according to the U.S. Standard Atmosphere Heights and Temperatures, the thermometer stands at 5 degrees below 0 Farenheit and there is only 10.5 percent oxygen in the air.
Lowe finally landed his balloon at Pea Ridge, S.C. He had traveled about 900 miles in nine hours. The math is easy. He averaged about 100 miles per hour at a time when the average person had never traveled at a speed of more than 10 miles per hour.
He landed in a mountainous, backward area of South Carolina and the sight of that huge balloon slowly dropping out of the sky made the residents frightened and angry. In minutes he was surrounded by a group of men carrying shotguns who were inclined to kill him. But after some hasty explanations an uneasy truce was reached and the frightened mountaineers agreed to haul him and his balloon to Union, a town that is now on U.S. 17 northwest of Columbia.
Here the plan to incarcerate Lowe in the town jail was vetoed by the jailer because it was “already filled with Yankee abolitionists.” The now-amused aeronaut finally spent the night in the town’s rickety hotel.
Another threatening crowd soon gathered. They – and who can blame them — refused to believe that Lowe had left Cincinnati that morning until he showed them copies of a Cincinnati newspaper bearing the day’s date. After the locals wrapped their heads around that idea he went from being a possible witch, a creature from outer space or a Yankee spy (the Civil War had begun April 12, less than two weeks earlier) to a hero.
The war presented an opportunity for Lowe to demonstrate that balloons high in the sky where the operator could see for miles around were an ideal platform for gathering intelligence about the location of enemy troops.
Off he went to Washington to demonstrate his point. The hidebound professional commanders of the Army weren’t interested in what Lowe had to offer. However, Abraham Lincoln was. In late July, Lincoln, with Lowe in tow, paid a personal visit to Winfield Scott, the Army’s commander, and informed the aging general that he was “to facilitate (Lowe’s) work in every way.”
The President’s prodding produced instant results. That same day the Army’s aeronautic corps was created. When fully established it consisted of six balloons, each with a pilot, two assistant pilots, a ground crew, and military escort. Lowe constructed the balloons at his shops in Philadelphia and invented a portable generator that could manufacture enough hydrogen in the field so balloons didn’t have to be sent back to Washington to be re-inflated.
Despite some early success, the balloonists were never accepted by the Army. Lowe resigned in 1863 when a mere captain, Cyrus Comstock, informed him that his salary would be cut from $10 a day in gold to $3 per day in specie. Lowe, who couldn’t absorb the loss of income, resigned. He served without pay during the Battle of Chancellorsville. When the battle ended on May 7, 1863, Lowe resigned from the corps.
At the close of 1863, Lowe moved his family to a farm in Chester County along the Pickering Creek. Three years later they were in Norristown because from there it was easy to reach Philadelphia, where he still had a business, and to New York City.
Lowe put his aeronaut days behind and turned his fertile mind and vast energy to other fields. Though all were successful from a scientific point, some failed financially. However, Lowe hit the jackpot in 1873 when he invented and patented the water gas process, an efficient way to create large amounts of hydrogen gas for use in commercial and residential heating and lighting. By 1879 he was producing and selling water gas in more than 30 cities and his process was adopted in many foreign countries.
The Franklin Institute awarded him two gold medals for his work in that field and, in 1891, the Paris Academy of Industry and Science followed suit when he was awarded a medal in recognition of inventions and scientific achievements.
By 1888 Lowe was in his mid-50s. His post-Army inventions had made him a wealthy man. At this point, still troubled by the malaria he had picked up during the war, he thought it was time to move on and, perhaps, the warm, dry climate of southern California would help him deal with his illness.
That year most of the Lowes — his wife and nearly all of his 10 children — left Norristown and settled in Pasadena. Lowe moved for health reasons only. It seems that the word “retirement” was not his dictionary.
On Orange Grove Avenue he built a mansion of a modest 24,000 square feet that included a four-story tower with a telescope. He also continued to create businesses, including banks, gas and electric companies, and ice companies.
Over the years, Lowe’s fortune ebbed and flowed. But now that it had reached its zenith he invested in a project of Disneyland proportions that would all but ruin him.
He leveled the top of nearby Echo Mountain and there created a resort known as the White City. Then he built a railroad to take people to it and along the right-of-way constructed hotels.
Lowe invested his fortune in the project and lost heavily in the Depression of 1893. Undaunted, he found other projects. In 1911, the 79-year-old man traveled back to Norristown in hopes of recruiting investors for another business venture. While there he fell and broke his hip and never walked again. He died in California on Jan. 16, 1913. In his honor flags in the state were flown at half-staff.
Lowe wanted to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery, but during his service he never joined the Army, so as a civilian his wish was denied. He is buried in Altadena, Calif.
Years later, a California historian captured his essence, “He was supremely interested in doing the things that everybody said could not be done.”