Frederick Marriott
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Frederick Marriott (c. 1805 – c. 1884) was an early aviation pioneer and creator of the Avitor Hermes Jr. which was the first unmanned aircraft to fly under its own power in the United States. Marriott is given credit for coining the term "aeroplane," and intended to build an air transport system that would bring people from New York to California without the perils of the normal voyage particularly of the 19th century. The company he formed (with Andrew Smith Hallidie) in 1866 was called the Aerial Steam Navigation Company.
Marriott was described as "an English gentlemen, of eccentric habits, much shrewdness and enterprise, and entire originality" by the publisher of the Northern Indianian on March 19, 1874.
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[edit] Publisher
- 1856-1928 San Francisco News Letter and California Advertiser
- London Illustrated News
- Pacific Coast Mining Journal
- 1867-1876 California China Mail and Flying Dragon
- 1854-1855 California Mail Bag
- California News Notes
The News Letter was officially subtitled, "The Authorized Organ of the Aerial Steam Navigation Company." One of the lead columns in the San Francisco News Letter and California Advertiser was called "Town Crier" and was written by Major Ambrose Bierce. Fredick Marriott is credited as the publisher of San Francisco News Letter.[1]
While Marriott's name was mentioned in one reference as a founder of the London Illustrated News, his connection with this publication seems more tenuous. He certainly was not the founder, although he may have worked at the paper which was founded in 1842 in London, at a time when Marriott was already an established publisher, but not, seemingly, associated with the News. The early history of the London Illustrated News does not mention Marriott.
The California China Mail and Flying Dragon was a Chinese language publication and one of the first sources of advertisements encouraging Chinese emigrants to work on the Western railway. It was subtitled, "Issued Every China Steamer Day."
The California News Notes was illustrated and many of the beautiful woodcuts remain for sale typically depicting the linkages of various railway lines.
As a publisher, Marriott was one of the first to print works from Mark Twain in his newspapers.
[edit] First flight
In 1841, in London, England, Marriott was one of three board members in the Aerial Transit Company (the other two were John Stringfellow and William Samuel Henson). The first ship created by the company exploded and the second was repossessed.
The Avitor Hermes Jr. was built in the basement of the publishing building largely by candle light and took flight at San Jose, CA's Shellmount Park racetrack near the current San Francisco airport. According to a Scientific American journalist (July 31, 1869) the aircraft took about 6 minutes to fill (it is hard to imagine this is credible as most balloons take a much longer period to fill) and flew at about 5 miles per hour. Upon a subsequent flight, however, the aircraft burned completely and was lost. A replica of the craft is on display at the Hiller Aviation Museum [1]. This was not a manned craft and amounted to a very large model.
Black Friday, a stock market crash in 1869 put an end to the efforts of Marriott to fly a lighter-than-air plane, although he did work on a heavier-than-air triplane in the mid 1870s.
Frederick Marriott died in San Francisco, CA on December 16, 1884.[2]
[edit] Sources
- Twain Quotes
- University of Houston, "Engines of Our Ingenuity" #322
- Holding Record from the University of California, Berkeley for a copy of the California China Mail and Flying Dragon
- Drury, William, Norton I, Emperor of the United States (Dodd, Mead, & Company, 1986)
- Johnson, Kenneth M., Aerial California. An Account of early Flight in Northern and Southern California, 1849 to World War I (Dawson's Book Shop, 1961)
- Parrramore, Thomas C., First to Fly: North Carolina and the Beginnings of Aviation (University of North Carolina Press, 2002) ISBN 0-8078-2676-6
