Aeronauts in the Oil Region
- Lydia Seaton
- 21 hours ago
- 4 min read
The story of "Carlotta, the Lady Aeronaut"
Mary Breed Hawley was born in Western Pennsylvania in 1849. Her family moved to Hornellsville, New York, where she eventually met and married Carl Meyers, an inventor, photographer, and aviation aficionado. Carl was interested in flying airships and in finding ways to innovate their trade, at one point discovering a new kind of balloon fabric that was lightweight, worked well with hydrogen gas, and could withstand the folding and unfolding involved in transporting the balloons.
After designing a new model of balloon, Carl was not able to find a pilot for the craft, so
he decided to test the ship himself. Once Mary saw her husband flying, she decided she wanted to do the same.
Since Mary did not think her name suited the adventurousness of flight, she began calling herself “Carlotta, the Lady Aeronaut.” Carl’s new alias became “The Professor.”
Her first public flight took place on Independence Day in 1880 in New York. A crowd of 15,000 people gathered to watch her ascension.
Mary would perform at exhibitions, fairs, festivals, and other events, frequently drawing crowds of tens of thousands throughout her flying career. One of her most famous flights was in New York City, where she flew her balloon “Zephyr” over Brooklyn and Manhattan before landing in New Jersey.
She was a skilled pilot who controlled her flight using a barometer that provided altitude readings. She was well attuned to the needed conditions for flight and understood how to read wind currents to pinpoint her landings. Mary even accounted for the need for communication by having carrier pigeons on her ship to send messages! Due to her expertise, Mary’s journeys usually went smoothly.
During one of her trips, however, Mary found herself stuck in a very tall tree due to strong wind gusts and issues with her ascent. In her memoir, she says:
“By and by a hunter came shouting through the woods, attracted by my calls, and looking everywhere except high enough. He laughed at my situation and asked me why I hadn’t found a taller tree to land in [...] I inquired for the best climber in the neighborhood, and sent after an axe, saw and ropes. When the climber came he said it was impossible to climb the tree, as “it was thirty feet to the first limb, and two men could not reach around the trunk.” I said it must be done, and sent for a long ladder, meanwhile employing other men in cutting down six smaller trees below the balloon, so that it might be safely lowered."
Mary held multiple world records during her career as an aeronaut. One of these was the title of the most one-woman piloted balloon trips in the 19th century. Another one of these records was set in Venango County!
Mary and Carl arrived in the Oil Region in September of 1886. She attempted to ascend on the 9th of September; however, there was not enough gas to lift the balloon. Carl, “The Professor,” overtook this flight when Mary said she was unable to, and he flew from Franklin to Sugarcreek.
The next day, on the 10th, Mary tried again and successfully ascended in her balloon. This marked the first time natural gas was used instead of hydrogen to inflate a balloon. Mary was said to have a “swift and exciting trip,” taking off from Franklin’s Prospect Park at 1:20 p.m. Within twenty minutes, she was spotted above Titusville, over fifteen miles from Franklin. At 2:45 p.m., she was seen traveling over Tidioute at speeds up to sixty miles per hour. Mary landed safely in Kinzua at 3:05 p.m., over sixty miles from Franklin.
Mary reported that she had trouble with a “sticky valve” which regulated the fuel supply during her journey. Despite this, she maintained a successful flight and set another record by reaching the unprecedented altitude of 21,000 feet, remarkable given the lack of a pressurized cabin or oxygen mask.
Mary retired from exhibition flying in 1891. It was claimed that “Carlotta, the Lady Aeronaut” had made more ascents during her career than “any man living in America.” Mary would also take passengers into the air with her, and it is claimed that she had over 100,000 passengers during her eleven-year flying career.
After retiring, she and her husband ran a business out of their home in Frankfort, New York, called the “Balloon Farm.” The couple sold balloons for recreational use, taught flying lessons, and developed balloons for the US Weather Bureau. They also supplied balloons for the US Army Signal Corps during the Spanish-American War.
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