(This article first appeared in the December print edition of the Hendersonian.)
Four decades before the first airplane zoomed into the Henderson County skies local audiences were entranced by daredevils parachuting out of balloons.
Between 1882 and 1912 balloonists performed at least 18 times in Henderson County, including in Corydon in 1896 and in Cairo in 1909.
It was dangerous work. The Henderson Reporter of May 18, 1882, noted the city of Vienna had passed an ordinance forbidding a married man from ascending in a balloon unless the man’s wife and children had given consent. Many early aeronauts—as they were called—met with fatal accidents; D.E. Johnson of Evansville, for instance, who was killed Oct. 8, 1885, in Union City, Tennessee.
Some newspapers even took to calling them “balloonatics.” Two performers known as Moore & Beeson adopted that label as part of their comedy act, which they performed Jan. 23, 1895, on the stage of the Park Theater.
Ballooning also carried an aura of romance in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The Reporter of June 17, 1884, in its coverage of the high school graduation, said Posey Ball gave a “humorous recitation” called “Love in a Balloon.” Some exhibitions elsewhere featured people getting married in balloons. (That may have been more about show business than true love.)
But the public also was probably a little envious, judging from this squib in the Henderson Journal of Oct. 17, 1891: “Thomas Baldwin, the aeronaut, was poor and thriftless till he took to dropping from balloons in a parachute. Now, after exhibiting his daring in three-quarters of the globe, he is well-to-do and his wife wears diamonds….”
One of the earliest balloon appearances in Henderson occurred April 20, 1882, according to the Reporter, and it was part of the W.C. Coup circus. It featured a balloon race; Estelle St. Claire in a balloon called Venus and Signor Montifiori in one called Jupiter. They performed a series of feats on trapeze.
An unnamed trapeze artist took off from Held’s Park on Clay Street, according to the Evansville Courier of Aug. 7, 1885. “The balloon pursued a course directly up the river, descending apparently in the river about one mile above the bridge. It was so dark at the time the balloon came down that the fate of the aeronaut could not be ascertained….”
What apparently was scheduled as Henderson’s first parachute jump was planned July 4, 1892, at Held’s Park—but it didn’t come off. The Henderson Journal of July 5 called it a “miserable failure.” It was not the first time that a planned balloon exhibition fell victim to the vagaries of wind.
“Every soul was eager, even on tiptoe to witness the flight…. The ropes were loosed and gradually the great thing rose, the ropes tightened, the rider seized his parachute and stood motionless when…. All of a sudden, he was jerked from his footing and the cut-off rope broke to leave him on terra firma, while the great ship, little end up, winged its flight upward and then collapsed.
“The crowd jeered, ugly words were said, and great disappointment was plainly manifested…. Cries of foul, fixed up job, and such like were everywhere to be heard” until the aeronaut promised to make another try.
But the main rope broke again, and the attempt was abandoned. “Everybody was supremely disgusted….”
The year 1895 saw Henderson native Charles Lewis Vaughn returning. Born in the fall of 1870, he had lived here until the late 1880s when he joined the John Robinson circus, where he learned the fine arts of crafting and piloting balloons.
“Going out into the world as a mere boy, he soon acquired fame as a balloonist and he remained in the business until he had made 1,600 ascensions in the United States, Europe and Australia,” according to the Henderson Journal of Feb. 8, 1910.
The Gleaner of Sept. 10, 1895, called him “the world’s noted aeronaut” and reported he made an ascent and parachute jump that day. He made multiple jumps over the course of the county fair.
The Gleaner of Sept. 19 pointed out that he and Laura Dennis Linton of 920 Washington St. had gone to Evansville to get married.
The same issue carried another story about the marriage in which the mother of Vaughn’s wife, Ellen Linton, alleged he was a bigamist five times over. “The old lady in her wild delirium wanted the (police) officers to hunt up her daughter and young Vaughn and bring them back.” The officers declined unless their expenses were paid in advance.
The Gleaner of Oct. 6 noted Vaughn had gone to Owensboro to entertain at the Daviess County Fair and on Oct. 4 he struck a tree while parachuting, which laid him up for days. That story also noted Moses Rhodes had provided the canvas and Vaughn, “with the assistance of several females and the use of the old city hall,” had constructed the balloon used locally.
The Oct. 8 Gleaner reported he remained in bed with a sprained back. A few days later, on Oct. 12, the paper reported Rhodes had placed a $100 attachment on Vaughn’s balloon. That may be why Vaughn’s new wife went to protect his interests in Greenville, where a substitute was to fly it.
The Gleaner of Dec. 15 reported the balloon was in possession of Rhodes and that William Seiber was going to make a flight either on Christmas or New Year’s Day at the local fairgrounds. I’ve seen no evidence that occurred.
But loss of his balloon was the least of his problems. Another article in the same issue reported Vaughn had been arrested for shooting his mother-in-law in the left wrist. Vaughn maintained it was an accident while cleaning his .32 revolver; his brother-in-law, Willis Linton, swore out a warrant for malicious shooting.
Vaughn surrendered at the police station and spent 10 days in jail before the police judge dismissed the charge.
He visited Henderson in 1907 and 1910, according to the Journal, which said by that point he was “boss canvas man for the Barnum & Bailey show.” He died at age 42 Nov. 11, 1912, in Evansville and is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery.
Also in 1912, Black residents organized a fair that ran Sept. 3-7 and a balloon flight was one of the attractions that drew 3,000 people.
A free exhibition at the railroad bridge on April 15, 1900, drew thousands of people from around the Tri-State area. The three-fold attraction featured a balloon flight by J.A. Loomis but the balloon was not properly inflated and came down on the bridge with the parachute still attached, according to the Evansville Courier of April 16. Loomis was not injured.
M.H. Gay, who dove 105 feet from the bridge, was not so fortunate. He was attempting a back somersault from the bridge but hit the water on his side instead of his feet; after a moment he was able to walk to the tent. George Slackey rode a bicycle on a wire stretched from the bridge to a pole on the bank, which went without incident.
William H. “Kid” Hanner of Cincinnati was the victim in Henderson’s sole fatal accident Sept. 29, 1900, according to a brief article in Billboard magazine of Oct. 6. “The balloon cleared the trees, but the trapeze caught in the top branches of a 70-foot elm and Hanner lost his hold.”
The Evansville Courier of Oct. 1 reported the cords of the parachute broke and “Hanner was raked off in the branches.” Failing to catch one, “he seemed to linger in the air a second or two, falling 50 or 60 feet with a dull thud.”
He was given whiskey and seemed to recover somewhat, asking his wife, “What is the matter, Jessie? What has happened?” The Klee funeral home ambulance was telephoned and soon arrived, but he died in transit to the sanitarium.
Walter Raub made flights at the fair in 1900, 1908 and 1909 and another at Atkinson Park July 5, 1905, sponsored by the Elks. His three parachutes were red, white and blue and he made a specialty of jumping from one to another.
Local residents saw their first dirigible in 1910 when Anthony “Tony” Nassr of Toledo, Ohio, demonstrated his handiwork at the county fair Oct. 12-14. He ran into some trouble, according to The Gleaner of Oct. 13 because his gas-powered engine quit o++n his return trip to the fairgrounds.
Nassr opened the gas bag and reversed the steering vane to descend smoothly. He made the necessary repairs and returned to his starting place.
The Gleaner of Oct. 14 said the airship “was one of the biggest drawing cards. People from all over Henderson, Union, Webster counties, and from Evansville, Owensboro, Madisonville, Marion and Earlington came to see Nassr take a journey into the skies.”
The Toledo Blade of March 25, 2000, said Nassr was known as the “Daring Syrian” and appeared on the front page of the New York Times in 1908.
“Tony constructed an airship and its engine. Shaped like a sausage, the flying machine was covered with Japanese silk sewn together in a quilted pattern, with linen cord drag ropes tying the balloon down. He operated the hydrogen gas-filled balloon from a spruce framework during flight.”
