A Lot of Gas…or Was It?

My dear nephew (thanks, Ian!) sent me the following item, which first appeared in the Northampton Mercury on July 23, 1808, and again on the blog of the website britishnewpaperarchive.co.uk roughly two hundred years later. I cannot vouch for its veracity (one of the principals being named "Monsieur Le Pique" does ring a few quiet BS-o-meter alarms in my head), but by gosh, what a story!

I’ll let you be the judge:

Novel Duel.—A very novel species of duel has lately taken place at Paris. M. Grandpree and M. Le Pique having quarreled about Mademoiselle Tirevit, a celebrated opera dancer, who was kept by the former, but was discovered in an intrigue with the latter, a challenge ensued. Being both men of elevated minds, they agreed to fight in balloons, and in order to give time for their preparation, it was determined that the duel should take place on that day month. Accordingly on the 3rd of May the parties met in a field adjoining the Tuilleries [sic], where their respective balloons were ready to receive them. Each, attended by his second, ascended his car, loaded with blunderbusses, as pistols could not be expected to be efficient in their probable situations. A multitude attended, hearing of the balloons, but little dreaming of the purpose: the Parisians merely looked for the novelty of a balloon race. At nine o’clock the cords were cut, and the balloons ascended majestically amidst the shouts of the spectators. The wind was moderate, blowing from the north north west, and they kept, as far as could be judged, within about 80 yards of each other. When they had mounted to the height of about 900 yards, M. Le Pique fired his piece ineffectually; almost immediately after the fire was returned by M. Grandpree, and penetrated his adversary’s balloon; the consequence of which was its rapid descent, and M. Le Pique and his second were both dashed to pieces on a house-top, over which the balloon fell. The victorious Grandpree then mounted aloft in the grandest style, and descended safe, with his second, about seven leagues from the spot of ascension.

See the original post here: https://blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2012/08/24/the-first-duel-fought-in-hot-air-balloons-paris-1808/

What do you think? Did it really happen, or did an editor at the Northampton Mercury think that the July 23 issue needed a little sprucing up and concocted the tale out of whole cloth, journalistic rigor not yet having the importance it does in modern times?

Whether it did or not, dear readers, this is what makes studying history so much fun!

Move Over Seattle; Make Way for the Railroad

I grew up around Tacoma, Washington, moving back a few years ago. Some people won’t have heard of the town. Whenever anything happens in the entire state of Washington, the news media will claim it’s “near Seattle.” Seattle has the bigger harbor. Seattle has the larger population. Seattle has the sports teams (go, Hawks!) and the concert venues. Seattle is home to the University of Washington. Seattle was the site of the World’s Fair, the location of many popular movies (Sleepless in Seattle, anyone?). Tacoma has always been a poor second cousin to the south.

Except when the railroad came to town.

Seattle was still a hamlet then. Yes, it had scored the Territorial University (which was still more grammar school than university then). Yes, it boasted a steam-powered sawmill. Surely the transcontinental Northern Pacific Railroad would choose Seattle as its terminus on Puget Sound. After all, the city fathers had offered 7,500 lots in town, 3,000 acres along the way, $50,000 in cash, and $200,000 in bonds.

Nope. On July 14, 1873, the mighty railroad notified Seattle that it had chosen the tiny village of Tacoma City located on Commencement Bay instead.

The people of Seattle were aghast, appalled. How could they have been passed over, for Tacoma? They were also a little worried. What would happen to Seattle if all the rail traffic went south? Papers of the time carried ads from merchants, saying “No terminus! And yet alive” and encouraging shoppers to come in for bargains.

Tacoma City was rather puffed up about the whole thing. There was a rush to buy land, position shops where the travelers could access them. Determined to make the most of the opportunity, men chartered another city just to the south along the route, calling it “New Tacoma.” (The two towns were later joined to form Tacoma.) Later, Tacoma would build a grand Union Station, still one of the city’s landmarks.

Supposedly the editor of the paper took great joy in rubbing the matter in Seattle’s face. Indeed, in early April 1875, the Tacoma Tribune even ran a story about the tragic fate of a thespian troop that had left Seattle by ship for Port Madison on the other side of the Sound. The ship sunk, with all hands and passengers gone. The problem? The accident never happened! The actors and their gear made it safely across the Sound.

I thought perhaps the Tacoma editor was trying to sell papers by making up more “interesting” stories. The editor of the Puget Sound Dispatch thought otherwise. He claimed the Tacoma editor was trying to denigrate Seattle.

“Four lies to one truth is far better than an average with the Tribune in mentioning any matter connected with Seattle and its harbor … But then, we have the charity to remember, that the humiliation which Tacoma has suffered in view of its utter and hopeless failure and the success of Seattle, has been an awful strain upon the patience of those who had built their hopes upon Tacoma as a rival town.”

It seems the rivalry I knew growing up is actually more than a century old. And counting.

All the News That Was, and Wasn't

I’m doing research. Lovely, lovely research. When I’m starting to plot a new Frontier Bachelors book, I read newspapers from the months in which I’m thinking about setting the tale. I like to see what was happening in Seattle, from a citizen’s point of view (or at least an editor on the other side of the Sound). I discovered the germ of the idea for A Convenient Christmas Wedding that way. I was fairly sure Beth Wallin’s story would be set in the spring of 1875, and I’d seen a mention online that there’d been a diphtheria epidemic in March. I never did find mention of the epidemic, but what I did find amazed me.

Much of the news wasn’t exactly news. 

Take this gem from the March 25, 1875, issue of the Puget Sound Dispatch:

“A Philadelphia youth was recently married to a girl who had refused him eighteen times. He wishes now he hadn’t asked her but seventeen.”

Or this

“We call the attention to Mr. Bergh [authority in the school system at the time] to the fact that the wolves are in a starving condition in Wisconsin. Any children sent there will be forwarded from Milwaukee.”

Or this

“Julia Ward Howe is organizing a literary club in Washington [D.C.]. In conjunction with it will be a free night school for carpet-bag representatives who cannot spell words of more than two syllables.”

Ouch!

The Weekly Argus of around the same time included a short story called Eurella, about a girl who put on airs because of her fancy first name and lived to regret it.

Then there was this, supposedly taken from a paper in Vineland, New Jersey:

“Mr. Carruth, editor of a paper published here, was fatally shot this morning by Chas. K. Landis, known as the father of Vineland. The affair rose out of an article in the paper, which Landis tho’t referred to him, but in which no names were mentioned.”

Maybe there’s a reason the Dispatch editor chose to use more stories without local people in them!

That issue does go on to describe massive parades celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York.

So, Happy St. Patrick’s Day!