Program

Historic Transportation

Subject

Event, Transportation

Location

2 Marine Dr, Buffalo, NY 14202, USA

Lat/Long

42.877123, -78.879064

Grant Recipient

City of Buffalo

In 1873, Samuel A. King (1828-1914), an early aeronaut and balloonist, commissioned an immense gas balloon to be fabricated in the city of Buffalo. The balloon was sewn from approximately 1,400 yards of cotton cloth by eight local women using Singer sewing machines. The August 12, 1873 Courier & Republic reported on the significant work undertaken in the balloon’s construction:

The length of each seam, from the “neck” to the “valve”, is ninety-five feet. There are sixty of these seams; and, each being gone over twice, there is … eleven thousand four hundred feet of stitching on the seams alone to be done. Besides this, there are twenty-four “stays” passing horizontally around the balloon to secure additional strength; and this will involve nearly half as much stitching as on the balloon itself.

Once completed, the balloon measured 176 feet in circumference, or about 56 feet in diameter. Arrangements were made with the Buffalo Gas Light Company for furnishing 91,000 feet of gas to inflate the “Buffalo” (Buffalo Daily Republic, September 9, 1873, 2). On September 16, 1873, King ascended from Buffalo in the balloon traveling over four counties across western New York, landing first in the town of Hornby in Stueben County, before proceeding again and finally landing in Oxford in Chenango County.

In reporting on this first trip, the September 24, 1873 Buffalo Weekly Courier noted that:

We have said so much in order to answer the question which has been frequently asked, how the ascension was gotten up. It was paid for by the contributions of many generous citizens of Buffalo, who like to see the city lively and to afford the people a splendid sight, and who believed the Prof. King was the best man to carry out any contract in the ballooning line.

The following year, on July 4, 1874, King once again embarked on a trip in his “Buffalo” balloon. However, this time he traveled from Buffalo all the way to the state of New Jersey, completing the voyage in 13 hours. The balloon landed about halfway between Salem and Bridgeton, New Jersey, having traveled roughly 400 hundred miles. It was reported at the time that King’s trip from Buffalo to New Jersey was one of the longest ever made in a balloon (Buffalo Daily Republic, July 7, 1874, 4).

After his historic flight, King continued a long aeronautical career that began with his first balloon ascension in 1851 and ultimately encompassed 480 trips carrying hundreds of passengers without a single serious accident, and with the vast majority occurring long before the advent of the airplane (Philadelphia Inquirer, November 4, 1914, 7). King passed away in 1914 at age 86 and is buried in Hillside Cemetery and Memorial Gardens in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.