Thaddeus Lowe was born in Jefferson Mills, New Hampshire to Clovis Lowe and Alpha Green (c1810-1842), the second child of a poor farm family of six. When he was ten his mother Alpha, the granddaughter of a Mayflower arrival, died, and young Thad was sent to another farm where he worked as an indentured servant. He had little time or opportunity for education but he required answers to some of his observations of the heavens and the high wind that always blew in an easterly direction. It would become a life's ambition to fly that wind (now known as a jet stream).
The road show business proved profitable enough for Lowe to procure the education he lacked as a child. He tried medicine to fulfill his grandmother's wish, but the boredom redirected him to his first interest, aviation and the use of lighter-than-air gases. American balloonists used coke gas to inflate limp silk bags, as opposed to the original French balloons which were cotton weave over rigid frameworks that were stood over fires to collect hot smoke (hot air). By the late 1850's Lowe had become a foremost balloon builder and continued his lucrative business as a showman giving balloon rides to passersby and fairground attendees.
In 1855, at one of his lectures, he met the pretty Parisian actress, 19-year-old Leontine Augustine Gaschon, who in a week became his wife, on February 14, 1855. During their honeymoon travels in the South, Lowe occasionally put on short programs in town as "Professor Coulincourt." They had ten children: Louise F. Lowe; Ida Alpha Lowe (b. 1859); Leon Percival Lowe (b. 1861); Ava Eugenia Lowe (b. 1863); Augustine Marguerite Lowe (b. 1865); Blanche Lowe (b. 1867); Thaddeus Lowe II (b. 1870), who had a famous aviatrix daughter known as Florence Lowe "Pancho" Barnes; Edna M. Lowe (b. 1872); Zoe Lowe (b. 1875); and Sobieski Constantine Lowe (b. 1877). They made their home in New York City and later in Philadelphia.
He continued with his scientific endeavors and avocation to make a transatlantic flight via the high winds. In 1857 he piloted his first balloon in tethered flight at a small farm in Hoboken. His father also became involved in the balloon-making business with Thad and together they built the "Enterprise", which was demonstrated at an exhibition in Ottawa. He amassed supporters from all corners of the scientific community, in particular one Prof. Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian Institution.
Transatlantic attempts
Lowe's mammoth balloon the City of New York, later named Great Western, to be used in a transatlantic flight.
Lowe's latest mammoth balloon, the City of New York, was a massive 103-foot diameter balloon with an 11-1/2 ton lift capacity (on coke gas, 22-1/2 ton on hydrogen), which included a 20-foot diameter, 8-man canvas covered gondola and a suspended lifeboat named for his wife Leontine. It was prepared for a test flight to be launched at Reservoir Square in New York on November 1, 1859. Unfortunately the local gas company was not able to deliver a sufficient supply of gas. Within a week Lowe was invited to Philadelphia by Prof. John C. Cresson of the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Sciences, who also happened to be Chairman of the Board of the Point Breeze Gas Works. They promised a sufficient supply of gas. Lowe stored the balloon in Hoboken and waited for spring to do the test flight.
Before the test flight the balloon was renamed the Great Western, on the advice of newspaperman Horace Greeley, to rival the maiden voyage of the steamship Great Eastern in the spring of 1860. Lowe made the flight successfully on June 28, 1860, from Philadelphia to New Jersey, but on his first attempt at a transatlantic launch on September 7, the Great Western was ripped open by a wind. A second attempt on September 29 was halted when the repaired spot on the balloon bulged during inflation. Lowe would need to overhaul the GW and wait for the next late spring.
A second test flight, at the suggestion of Prof. Henry, was made from Cincinnati and was to return him to the eastern seaboard. For this flight he used the smaller balloon Enterprise. His flight took off on the early morning of April 19, 1861, two days after Virginia had seceded from the Union. The flight misdirected him to Unionville, North Carolina where he was put under house arrest as a Yankee spy. Having established his identity as a man of science, he was allowed to return home where he had received word from Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase to come to Washington with his balloon. The American Civil War permanently ended Lowe's attempt at a transatlantic crossing.
Participation in the Civil War (1861-1863)
Chief Aeronaut
On the evening of June 11, 1861 Lowe met President Lincoln and offered to perform a demonstration with the Enterprise and a telegraph set from a height some 400 feet above the White House. Lowe was competing for the position with three other prominent balloonists, Mr. John Wise, Mr. John LaMountain, and the Allen Brothers, Ezra and James. Wise and LaMountain were old critics of Lowe, but were not able to obtain the assignment so easily.
Lowe's first outing was performed at First Bull Run with General Irvin McDowell and the Army of the Potomac. His performance was impressive though he had the misfortune of having to land behind enemy lines. Fortunately he was found by members of the 31st New York Volunteers before the enemy could discover him, but he had twisted his ankle and was not able to walk out with them. Eventually his wife Leontine, disguised as an old hag, came to his rescue with a buckboard and was able to extract him and his equipment safely.
Word of his exploits got back to the President who ordered Gen. Winfield Scott to see to Lowe's formation of a Balloon Corps with Lowe as Chief Aeronaut. It was almost four months before Lowe received orders and provisions to construct four (eventually six) balloons with hydrogen gas generators. At the same time he assembled a band of men whom he would instruct in the methodology of military ballooning. The newly formed Union Army Balloon Corps remained a civilian contract organization, and never received a military commission, a dangerous position lest any one of the men be captured as spies and summarily executed.
Peninsula Campaign
Lowe returned to the Army of the Potomac now under Gen. George McClellan with his new military balloon the Eagle, though his generators were not ready. He performed ascensions over Yorktown after which the Confederates retreated toward Richmond. Lowe was given use of a converted coal barge, The George Washington Parke Custis, onto which he loaded two new balloons and two new hydrogen gas generators, which exercised the first observations over the Potomac River thereby making the GWP Custis the first aircraft carrier. Lowe went on to serve in the Peninsula Campaign of 1862, making observations over Mechanicsville, Virginia, and the ensuing battle of Seven Pines and Fair Oaks.
Prof. Lowe ascending in the Intrepid to observe the Battle of Fair Oaks
The picture to the right depicts Lowe's ascent in the Intrepid over the Battle of Fair Oaks where his observations of the oncoming Confederate Army and the timely manner in which he reported troop movements saved the isolated army of General Heintzelman. Though he had used the hydrogen gas generators (each balloon camp was assigned two generator units), the inflation time was still another hour off. He quickly transferred the gas from the Constitution into the Intrepid by cutting a hole in the bottom of a camp kettle and connecting the balloons at the valve ends. The process took fifteen minutes, a time savings he valued at "a million dollars a minute."
The muddy bogs around Fair Oaks and the Chickahominy River gave rise to many exotic diseases such as typhoid and malaria. Lowe contracted malaria and was put out of service for more than a month. The unsuccessful Army of the Potomac was ordered to retreat to Washington from and Lowe's wagons and mules were commandeered for the withdrawal and eventually returned to the Quartermaster. When Lowe returned to Washington he was hard pressed to be put back into service. Eventually he was called to Sharpsburg and Fredericksburg where his services were used.
Troubled balloon corps
The Balloon Corps was reassigned to the Engineers Corps. Lowe had been paid as a Colonel ($10 gold per day), but in March of 1863, Captain Comstock was put in charge of the newly reassigned air division and cut Lowe's pay to $6 cash ($3 gold). At the same time a Congressional assessment was being made of the air division and a disparaging third party report, which Lowe refuted in a lengthy response, gave pause to the Union commanders for further use of balloons. Lowe tendered his resignation in May 1863 and the Allen Brothers took charge of the Balloon Corps, but by August the Corps had ceased to exist.
Return to the private sector
Lowe returned to show business, but his bout with malaria after the Fair Oaks battle and his weariness from the war took away his zest for a transatlantic flight (which no one ever made in a simple gas balloon). He made a new home in Norristown, Pennsylvania where he continued with his scientific endeavors with hydrogen gas, improving upon and patenting the water gas process by which high volumes of the volatile fuel could be made from passing steam over hot coal. The industry revolutionized home heating and lighting along the eastern seaboard. He held several patents on ice making machines and even discovered that gas burning through a platinum mantle produced a bright light (as later found in the Coleman lantern).
He bought an old steamship in which he installed his refrigerating units and began shipping fresh fruit from New York to Galveston, and fresh beef back. This was an historical first where people were able to eat fresh beef that hadn't been packed in preservative salts. His steamship venture failed due to his lack of knowledge about shipping, but the industry was picked up by several other countries.
Lowe also manufactured products that ran on hydrogen gas. With these and his several patents Lowe amassed a fortune. For his achievements Lowe received the coveted Elliott Cresson Grand Medal of Honor for the Invention Held to be Most Useful to Mankind.
Retirement in Pasadena, California
In 1887 Lowe moved to Los Angeles and in 1890 to Pasadena, California where he built a 24,000 sq. ft. mansion. He started a water-gas company, founded the Citizens Bank of Los Angeles (not to be confused with Citizens Bank founded in Rhode Island), established several ice plants, and funded an opera house.
In 1891 he incorporated the Pasadena & Mount Wilson Railroad (later the Mount Lowe Railway). Unable to obtain all the rights of way to Mt. Wilson, he and his engineer David J. Macpherson redirected their railway toward Oak Mountain via the Echo promontory. The difference between this and any other railway of its kind was that it was all electric traction trolley (streetcar), the only one of its kind. Oak Mountain was later renamed Mount Lowe, and to make it official, Andrew McNally, the map printer from Chicago who was also transplanted to Altadena, had Mt. Lowe printed on all his maps (see Rand McNally).
Lowe opened the first section of the railway on July 4, 1893, from the corner of Lake and Calaveras in Altadena to the Rubio Pavilion in the Rubio Canyon, then transferring to a steep 2,800-foot-long funicular to Echo Mountain. At the top there was a 40-room chalet. In 1894 he added an 80-room hotel, the Echo Mountain House, and the observatory. By 1896 the upper division was finished into Grand Canyon at Ye Alpine Tavern. Altogether there were some seven miles of track. Lowe lost the venture to receivership in 1899, which left him impoverished. The MLR became part of Henry Huntington's recently formed Pacific Electric Railway (also known as "Red Car") in 1902.
The only part of the railway property that remained Lowe's was the observatory on Echo Mountain. It boasted a 16-inch reflective telescope from which many astronomical finds were made. It was blown down in a gale in 1928. The railway fell in stages to the Echo Mountain House fire, a kitchen fire on February 4, 1900; a wind aided brush fire on Echo Mountain in 1905, which wiped out everything except the observatory and the astronomer's cabin; a Rubio Canyon flash flood in 1909 that destroyed the Pavilion; and an electrical fire that razed the Tavern in 1936. The line was abandoned after the Los Angeles deluge of March 1938.
Death and legacy
Lowe died at his daughter's Pasadena, California home at age 81 after a few years of failing health. To his name is left Mount Lowe in the San Gabriel Range of Southern California. Lowe was buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena, California, Next to him lies his wife Leontine who passed but a year later. Also buried near the Lowe monument are his two sons Leon and Sobieski and other family members whose names differ due to the married names of the seven daughters. Many of the family members returned to the East Coast. A nearby monument has been separately erected for his son Thaddeus and his wife.
There are no grandsons to account for carrying on the name of Lowe, but many of the children and grandchildren of the daughters carry the Lowe name as a middle name.
The Mount Lowe Railway was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 6, 1993. Lowe is a member of the U.S. Army Military Intelligence Hall of Fame.
See also
References
- Manning, Mike, Intrepid, An Account of Prof. T.S.C. Lowe, Civil War Aeronaut and Hero.
- Lowe, Thaddeus, Official Report (to the Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton) (Parts I & II) (#11 & #12) O.R. - Series III - Volume III [S#124] Correspondence, Orders, Reports, and Returns of the Union Authorities From Jan 1 to December 31, 1863.
- Block, Eugene B., Above the Civil War, 1966.
- Hoehling, Mary, Thaddeus Lowe, America's One-Man Air Corps, 1958.
- Seims, Charles, Mount Lowe, The Railway in the Clouds, 1976.
- Evans, Charles M. "The War of the Aeronauts--A History of Ballooning in the Civil War." Stackpole Books, 2002
- Evans, Charles M., Air War over Virginia, an on-line publication.
- re: The Mount Lowe Railway: Man, Mountain and Monument 2001
External links