A Lady Aeronaut in the Oil Region

Mary Hawley’s Record-Setting Journey Over Venango County

Venango County was once home to a world-record-breaking aviation experiment. In 1886, balloonist Mary Hawley took off from Franklin on a natural gas-powered flight, completing a swift, high-altitude journey that placed the Oil Region at the forefront of early flight history.

Venango County flight details compiled from Women in Transportation History: Mary Myers, Professional Balloonist (2017) and contemporary regional newspaper accounts.

Mary Breed Hawley was born in Western Pennsylvania in 1849, a place that would later be important to her. She moved with her family to Hornellsville, New York, where she met and married Carl Meyers, who was an inventor, photographer, and aviation enthusiast. Carl was passionate about ballooning and airship flight and worked to make better balloon designs. One of his inventions was a lightweight, strong balloon fabric that worked well with hydrogen gas and could handle being folded many times for transport.

After Carl designed a new balloon, he had trouble finding someone to test it, so he decided to fly it himself. Seeing her husband fly made Mary want to try as well. She thought her own name was not dramatic enough for flying, so she chose the stage name “Carlotta, the Lady Aeronaut.” Carl became known as “The Professor.”

Mary made her first public balloon flight on Independence Day in 1880 in New York, attracting about 15,000 people. After that, she became a popular attraction at fairs, festivals, and exhibitions, often drawing crowds of tens of thousands. One of her best-known flights was over New York City, where she flew her balloon, Zephyr, over Brooklyn and Manhattan, landing in New Jersey.

Mary was a skilled aeronaut who used a barometer to check her altitude and watched wind currents to plan her landings. She sometimes brought carrier pigeons to send messages during her flights. Because she was well prepared and experienced, most of her trips went well, though there were some mishaps. Once, strong winds left her stuck high in a tree.

In her memoir, Aerial Adventure of Carlotta, the Lady Aeronaut, she describes how she directed a group of men to cut down nearby trees and safely lower the balloon, showing her calm and leadership even in dangerous moments. Mary set several world records during her career, including the most solo balloon flights by a woman in the 1800s.

One of her biggest achievements happened in Venango County, Pennsylvania. In September 1886, Mary and Carl went to the Oil Region. On September 10, Mary Myers launched a balloon from Franklin, Pennsylvania, using natural gas instead of hydrogen, marking an early test of this fuel in aviation.

Map of Carlotta's flight over Pennsylvania's Oil Region.

During this flight, however, she reported being unable to control the balloon's ascent because the gas valve became stuck. She took off at 1:20 p.m. and was seen over Titusville within twenty minutes, then passed over Tidioute at nearly sixty miles per hour. She landed in Kinzua at 3:05 p.m., more than sixty miles from Franklin. Even though she had a faulty valve, Mary reached a record altitude of 21,000 feet without supplemental oxygen.

Mary stopped flying in public shows in 1891, after reportedly having made more balloon flights than any man in America at the time. She and Carl later ran the “Balloon Farm” in Frankfort, New York, where they provided balloons, lessons, and equipment to civilians, the U.S. Weather Bureau, and the U.S. Army. This work helped secure her place in the early history of aviation.

Sources

Bassett, Griffith Brewer. The Story of Lighter-Than-Air Transportation. New York: Franklin Watts, 1966.

Carl Myers Balloon Farm Collection. Balloon Farm Records and Correspondence. Frankfort, New York, 1991.

Hawley, Mary Breed. Aerial Adventure of Carlotta, the Lady Aeronaut, or Sky-Larking in Cloudland. New York: self-published, 19th century.

Women in Transportation History. “Mary Myers, Professional Balloonist.”