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VOLUME XXIX. ---- NO. 85

FIRST EDITION

DONALDSON THE AERONAUT

HIS SUPPOSED FATE

A Rotten Balloon, Worthless Gas, and a Reckless Aeronaut.

The Chicago Tribune, of Saturday, says: 

There is every reason to fear that Prof. Washington Donaldson and his hapless companion, Mr. Grimwood, of the Journal, perished in the hurricane of Thursday night. Had the balloon been in its most proper trim, that ruthless tempest would have sorely tried its stanchness. But if, as there is abundant reason to suspect, the machine was in no fit condition to brave even the lesser hazards of a trip across Lake Michigan, the hope that Donaldson and his guest reached solid ground in safety seems only too desperate.

The departure of the balloon was full of evil augury. A frail bag of cheap cotton, harnessed by wreaths of old cordage to a crazy wicker basket, there were no signs of car or precaution in the process of making ready.

Donaldson was evidently very nervous about the start. He whistled vacantly to himself, and took frequent observation of the wind and the promise of the sky.

The two reporters who entered the car together held no conversation with him, and while they were in the heat of an inaudible dialogue, he swung himself, monkey-fashion, to a platform of wire netting just under the neck of the balloon, in which unfragrant neighborhood he remained till the machine became a speck in the upper blue.

Just before the balloon began the series of short bums and jerks which was the prelude of its departure, Donaldson covered his eyes with his hand and gazed steadfastly over the treacherous lake. One of the wags sung out: "Donaldson, you'd better get out." The aeronaut was silent for a minute; then he muttered: "I wish to Christ I could!"

Grimwood, of the Journal, was in that dingy wicker-car, peering through the network of ropes like a cage-bird. Donaldson's wire perch was fully three feet above him.

Yesterday morning, after a night of unusual hurricane, there was early and anxious inquiry at the Hippodrome for the adventurous pair. To the first as well as to the latest questioner, Mr. Barnum's agents could only reply with an expression of hopefulness. Donaldson had survived such momentous perils in the past, had came out scatheless from so many hand-to-and encounters with death, that there was excuse enough for being confident.

But when, later in the day, a coasting schooner brought news of the balloon's dire peril at an early hour of the night, some time before it was called upon to stand the tremendous shock of the tempest, hope for the voyagers' safety gave place to a reluctant belief that they had both perished. The "Little Guide," a small craft, employed in the lumber and tan-bark trade, entered this port about 9 o'clock. Upon her arrival, her captain, a Swede named Anderssen, and his mate, a compatriot named Rasmussen, both told how at 7 o'clock on Thursday evening, when off Grosse Point, some 12 miles north of Chicago, and while standing out 30 miles from the shore, they had seen the balloon dropping its car once in awhile into the lake, only some miles and a half distant from their vessel. Realizing the dangerous situation of the aeronauts, Capt. Anderssen headed his schooner in their direction. But before he could overtake the machine, which was bounding at a rapid pace on the water, there was a sudden lightening of the car, and the globe shot upwards to a great height, soon disappearing altogether from the view of the crew of the schooner. There is every reason to believe that the cause of the renewed buoyancy of the balloon was either the loss of most of the ballast or of one of the two lockless voyagers. Capt. Anderssen and his mate were, so far as it can be positively settled at the present, the very last observers of the balloon and its human freight. 

What, after their brief glimpse, became of the great sphere and of the two men who intrusted their lives to its perfidious keeping?

Running northeast, they knew nothing of the tornado whirling tempestuously to the northern end of the lake, big with their destruction.

The tempest, gathering volume and fury in the north, spun round on its centre, and swept in frenzy over the face of the lake. When the balloon had achieved, probably, two-thirds of its disastrous voyage, and only 40 miles had to be traversed to complete it, the storm burst in all its terror not he laboring sphere.

The past of the hurricane and the course of the balloon intersected just about 40 miles form Grand Haven, and it was at the point of that intersection that the gale struck down the balloon. Every buffet the hapless globe received must have driven it nearer to the seething water. The situation of the adventurers by this time must indeed have been deplorable.

How the two men met their fate we shall probably never know. A tragic chorus sang their requiem in the roar of the thunder and the wail of the wind. Had there been a fitting inspiration for such an ending, their death would have been heroic. But, wild as their enterprise was, nobody can think without a thrill of the two should which, seizing the wings of the storm, passed out of the crash and the ruin of that tempestuous midnight into the haven of a perpetual morning.

Remembering the shabby trick played upon the journals of this city by the aeronaut, Donaldson, last spring, when he telegraphed from New Jersey that he had been killed by falling from a balloon, we are not disposed to jump to the conclusion that any similar reports are correct. But there really does seem to be some reason to fear the Donaldson has at last lost his life. He sailed away from Chicago on Thursday of the last week in a balloon containing several other persons, and he has not been heard from since, while a number of shipmasters have reported having seen upon the lake floating material which seemed to have belonged to a balloon. The death of Donaldson by an accident to him or his balloon was probably only a question of time. He was one of the most reckless and foolhardy of men, and his habit was to attempt, while high in the air, the performance of feats which were exceptionally perilous. Donaldson originally was an acrobat, and he indulged his fancy for gymnastic exercised whenever he made a balloon ascension.

As NOTHING had been heard from Professor Donaldson, the intrepid balloonist and all that, who sailed away from Chicago last Thursday afternoon in one of Mr. Barnum's air ships, there is a strong probability that the aerial navigator has made a sure thing of his obituary this time. Had it not been for the activity of a TIMES reporter, who persisted in publishing Mr. Donaldson as alive and well when he himself had telegraphed that he was dead, he would long ago have had the pleasure of seeing his career duly paraded in the newspapers, nothing extenuated nor aught set down in malice.

The Times

PHILADELPHIA, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 4, 1875.

DONALDSON'S body has been seen and has not been seen on the lake, and his disappearance or death, as the case may be, is still involved in mystery. It matters little to the world, however, whether Donaldson be dead or alive, except that in the latter case his sudden taking off has a moral which has often been pointed, but never practiced. Donaldson, while he was daring and all that sort of thing, was nevertheless a cheap mountebank, who risked his life for pelf and pandered to an appetite as depraved and morbid as that which takes men and women to a hanging. He knew absolutely nothing of the science of aerostation, if science it can be called, and did not contribute one iota to the world's store of information. He was Barnum's last and biggest humbug, and his body was not cold in death before Barnum had engaged a fellow of his ilk to take his place and play upon the fears of the groundlings. The law which punished the would-be suicide ought to take cognizance of the would-be Donaldsons.

Little Johnny Wise. - This daring young æronaut made a very beautiful ascension from the Fair Grounds yesterday. He landed on the farm of Mr. Eshleman, near Marticville, in the sea field and precisely upon the same spot where his grandfather, John Wisen landed some twenty years ago. This circumstance was related to him be Mr. Eshleman, who distinctly remembers the occurrence. No trouble was experienced by the little chap, and he described the voyage through the air as one of the most enjoyable he has ever experienced. He was up about an hour and traveled nine miles, he and his air-ship being hauled into Lancaster by Mr. Henry Huber, of Marticville.

The balloon was filled in the morning at the corner of Frederick and Duke streets. The gas main was tapped and the gas for over five hours uninterruptedly flowed into the balloon. The day was one of the finest, according to Mr. Wise's own statement, which they have ever had for the purpose, and the inflation was witnessed by an inquisitive throng of men, women and children from the neighborhood. The balloon has a capacity of over 7,000 feet, and at the rate of 40 pounds elevating power per 1000 feet of the gas, 280 pounds was the limit to the weight of baggage. The apparatus, including 90 feet of grappling rope and anchor, 300 feet feet of drag rope, &c., weighs 130, and the young aeronaut himself 80 pounds. He took with him in the balloon instruments of the finest workmanship, presented to him after his last most successful trip from Indiana by D. Shepherd Holman, the celebrated microscopist and actuary of the Franklin Institute, in Philadelphia. They consist of an aneroid barometer, thermometer and hydrometer, the necessary appliances for ascertaining the height of the balloon and the condition of the atmosphere.

The commendable qualities of intrepidity, coolness and courage are not the only ones which distinguish Johnny, as is well known among his many former associated in the school-room and playground. He is studious and patient in application to all things. He stand at the head of the senior class of the Hancock grammar school, of Philadelphia, where his father has been living since his departure from Lancaster. It is not a little to say of a boy, fourteen years of age, that he will ever the Philadelphia high school in a month at the head of his class.

About noon the balloon was filled as full as required for the purposes of the ascension and the work of towing it across to the fair grounds commenced. This was very successfully accomplished and before 1 o'clock it was securely anchored in the eastern part of the park, it being visible high above the fence and capable of being seen from any elevated building in the city. 

No sooner was it understood that the inflation had been completed than the greatest curiosity to see and inspect the air ship began to manifest itself and crowds thronged towards the park and the ticket seller were kept busy.

Punctually a few minutes after 3 o'clock, the balloon was loosed from its moorings, everything being in readiness, and being detached from all that held it to mother earth, with a great bound, as though glad to be free, it shot straight up into the air a distance of hundreds of feet, and was soon visible for a distance of miles around the city. As it was seen by the crowds in the square and on the streets, a great shout went up: "There he goes," and as long as it could be seen all interest was centred in the daring little aeronaut who hung there, his life suspended on a slender cord, between heaven and earth, and a thousand feet above the latter. As though to gracefully salute his native him it moved after the ascension slightly southwest and stood over the city, then again eastward and finally direct south. At 3 1/4 o'clock it was still moving southward slowly and at 3 1/4 seemed to be in the vicinity of Willow Street, not at a very great elevation and apparently moving slowly. At 4 o'clock he landed as above stated, the happiest little fellow and the most unconcerned of all the people who surrounded him.