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Human Carrying Kites Of The 1890s

January 30, 2024

Originally published in The Smithfield Times magazine, April, 2023

Human Carrying Kites of the 1890s

By Jim Ignasher

Can you imagine yourself standing in the middle of an electrical storm, rain pelting your face, gusty winds howling, and instead of an umbrella, you’re holding a kite? Me either, but apparently Benjamin Franklin did just that on June 10, 1752. Contrary to popular belief, he wasn’t trying to “discover” electricity, but rather was attempting to illustrate that lightning was an electrical discharge. And by the way, his kite was never actually hit by lightning, for if it had, Ben would have been toast.

The experiment led Franklin to invent the lightning rod for the protection of tall structures, but this wasn’t the only time in history that kites were utilized for practical and scientific purposes.

The origin of the kite dates to ancient times, and they’ve been produced in various sizes and shapes over the centuries.

Franklin wasn’t the only one to recognize their potential when it came to uses other than toys. One example was Professor J. Woodbridge Davis, of New York, who incorporated the kite in rescuing survivors from shipwrecks. His idea was to utilize a large six-pointed-star shaped kite to carry a line out to stranded ships foundering off shore. In April of 1893, he tested his idea when a kite was launched from the Brenton Reef Lightship off the Rhode Island Coast. The 25 mph wind easily carried it to shore a mile-and-a-half away, and the whole experiment took forty-one minutes.

In 1895 the Boston Aeronautical Society was founded at the Blue Hills observatory in Milton, Massachusetts. It was there that kite experiments were carried out as a way to study meteorology and aeronautics. It was hoped that the society’s kite designs might lead to airships capable of transporting humans. In one experiment conducted on July 21, 1896, a number of kites strung in tandem reached the amazing altitude of 7,200 feet – a world record for the time.

One member of the society was William A. Eddy of New Jersey, inventor of the “Eddy Kite”. On May 30, 1895, he took the first kite-aerial-photograph by operating the attached camera remotely from the ground. In August of 1896 he took several aerial pictures of Boston, some taken from as high as 1,500 feet.

In the autumn of 1896, meteorological instruments were attached to a series of newly developed kites strung together to study high altitude weather. These kites reportedly reached an altitude of 9,000 feet!

While some studied weather, others envisioned kites large enough to carry an adult human. In 1902, several newspapers carried the story of a Boston couple, Daniel Rice, Jr., and his wife Almenia, who did just that. Both had been circus performers, he a clown, and she a balloonist – aeronaut. In the summer of 1901 he’d constructed a kite made of wood and canvas that was fourteen feet tall and fourteen feet wide, capable of lifting his 125 pound wife. The apparatus reportedly made its successful inaugural flight from the roof of a hotel at 144 Tremont Street in Boston, however Mrs. Rice was not aboard, and instead the kite carried a weight of 125 pounds.

Mrs. Rice eventually flew in her kite, thus making her what the press called “the first woman in the world to navigate the air with a kite as a craft.”

Another member of the Boston Aeronautical Society was Charles H. Lamson of Maine who constructed a massive kite known as “The Lamson Airship”, capable of carrying a 150 pound person. In August of 1896 he sent it aloft carrying a human dummy. Unfortunately the wire broke when the kite reached 600 feet, but he’d set a new record for the largest kite ever flown, and the heaviest weight to the highest altitude by a kite.

What made Lamson’s Airship unique was that he’d installed levers to control the “wings”, thereby allowing the “pilot” to control the descent and land safely should the wire connecting the kite to the ground suddenly break.

There were others who experimented with human-lifting kites such as the United States military. The military saw the practical applications for forward observers and artillery spotters who would no longer be required to find high ground or tall structures to report enemy movements. The army had been using balloons for such purposes since the American Civil War, but kites were easier to transport and deploy. However, the advent of airplanes made the whole idea obsolete.

Kites large enough to carry human cargo require a lot of area to gain the required lift, and those mentioned here pale in comparison to what is said to be the largest kite in the world; the Al Majd Kite, which flew in Beijing, China, in 2018. It has a massive 8,769 square feet of fabric, and is 216.5 feet long by 131.2 feet wide.

Something to ponder the next time you fly a kite.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: History of Kites, Kite History

Forgotten Tales Of Yankee Peddlers

January 30, 2024

Originally published in The Smithfield Times magazine, August 2023

Forgotten Tales of Yankee Peddlers

By Jim Ignasher

There’s a story I found in an 1843 newspaper that tells of a Yankee peddler in a tavern who was insulted by a military major who declared the peddler to be a liar, and when the peddler stood up for himself he was challenged to a duel at sunrise. The major was known for having instigated and won several duels in the past, and the outcome of this one seemed a forgone conclusion.

At the appointed time the peddler arrived with a rife while the major held a box with two loaded pistols. Pointing the rifle, the peddler demanded the man hand over the pistols in exchange for the rifle. The major did so, and promptly attempted to shoot the peddler with his own rife, but the charged failed to go off, for it wasn’t loaded. Taking the loaded pistols and pointing them at the major, the peddler retrieved his rifle and made for greener pastures. Whether the story is true or not is open to speculation, but its fun to consider non-the-less.

The term “Yankee peddler” was born in New England, and dates to the early days of the Massachusetts Colony. Boston is credited with producing the first Yankee peddlers who set out from the fledgling seaport to carry goods of all kinds to rural towns and hamlets across the north east.

Cooking spices were common items carried, and it’s been said that Connecticut came to be called “The Nutmeg State” due to the introduction of Nutmeg by peddlers. Legend also has it that dishonest peddlers would pass off “wooden nutmegs” to unsuspecting farm wives; thus the warning, “beware of wooden nutmegs”, which goes along with the old adage, “Don’t take any wooden nickels.”

The more successful Yankee peddlers made their way by horse-drawn wagons while others walked carrying sacks on their backs. Each traveled routes of their own choosing, usually competing with other peddlers for the same profits.

Being a peddler was dangerous work, for not only did highwaymen roam the back roads looking for travelers to rob, there are numerous ghostly legends of peddlers who met their demise after staying at some wayside tavern. One such tale comes from Mattawamkeag, Maine, where a peddler known as “Peddler Pete” disappeared from a tavern in 1856. Pete sold inexpensive jewelry, and wore a unique shell bracelet on his right wrist. From time to time his ghost would appear, sometimes pointing at the floor in front of the tavern’s massive fire place, but it wasn’t until 1906, when the building was being dismantled for its lumber, that Pete’s remains were discovered still wearing his unique bracelet.

Closer to home, a peddler reportedly murdered in an apple orchard in Douglas, Massachusetts, was said to haunt the site for years afterwards, and the apple tree under which he died was said to produce apples containing a drop of blood in the center. A similar legend is told in the town of Franklin, Connecticut.

And Smithfield has such a legend of its own involving an unnamed peddler who disappeared one night while sleeping in the basement of the former Waterman Tavern. It was thought he’d fallen down a well, but one would think someone would have checked before taking another drink. In any event, he was never seen again.

Yet not all legends involve murder, as with the tale of an unfortunate peddler who was swallowed up along with his wagon when he drove into quicksand while navigating Muck Swamp Road in Norwalk, Connecticut, in 1830. (This road does not appear on contemporary maps.)

And take the case of two peddlers who reportedly entered a strange partnership. The first, according to a newspaper account, “…a tin peddler wishing to coin money more rapidly than by disposing of his wares…” made his rounds while deliberately passing on some type of ailment causing his customers to itch. (Possibly lice.) A week or so later his partner appeared selling an “infallible (itch) remedy” to the same customers!

Yet another legend tells of an enterprising Yankee who during the American Revolution traveled to New York City hoping to sell wooden bowels and plates, but wasn’t having much luck. Somehow he procured a British uniform and approached a merchant telling him the Commodore of the fleet was looking to purchase a large quantity of wooden ware. The merchant said that he knew where some could be had, and that if he came back later he would have the merchandise. The merchant sent an employee to buy up all the peddler had to sell.

By the later 1800s many household items were no longer hard to obtain even for those living in rural areas, and the traveling peddler disappeared from the American landscape and became a thing of the past, yet their legends linger.