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Thaddeus Sobieski Coulincourt Lowe (August 20, 1832 - January 16, 1913), also known as Professor T.S.C. Lowe, was an American Civil War aeronaut, scientist and inventor, mostly self - educated in the fields of chemistry, meteorology, and aeronautics, and the father of military aerial reconnaissance in the United States. By the late 1850s he was well known for his advanced theories in the meteorological sciences as well as his balloon building. Among his aspirations were plans for a transatlantic flight. Lowe's scientific endeavors were cut short by the onset of the American Civil War. He recognized his patriotic duty in offering his services as an aeronaut for the purposes of performing aerial reconnaissance on the Confederate troops on behalf of the Union Army. In July 1861 Lowe was appointed Chief Aeronaut of the Union Army Balloon Corps by President Abraham Lincoln. Though his work was generally successful, it was not fully appreciated by all members of the military, and disputes over his operations and pay scale forced him to resign in 1863. Lowe returned to the private sector and continued his scientific exploration of hydrogen gas manufacturing. He invented the water gas process by which large amounts of hydrogen gas could be produced from steam and charcoal. His inventions and patents on this process and ice making machines made him a millionaire. In 1887 he moved to Los Angeles, California, and eventually built a 24,000 sq. ft. (2,230 m2) home in Pasadena. He opened several ice making plants and founded Citizen's Bank of Los Angeles. Lowe was introduced to David J. Macpherson, a civil engineer, who had drawn up plans for a scenic mountain railroad. In 1891 they incorporated the Pasadena & Mount Wilson Railroad Co. and began the construction of what would become the Mount Lowe Railway into the hills above Altadena. The railway opened on July 4, 1893 and was met with quick interest and success. Lowe continued construction toward Oak Mountain, renamed Mount Lowe, at an exhaustive rate, both physically and financially. By 1899 Lowe had gone into receivership and eventually lost the railway to Jared S. Torrance. Lowe's fortunes had been all but lost, and he lived out his remaining days at his daughter's home in Pasadena where he died at age 80.
Thaddeus Lowe was born August 20, 1832 to Clovis and Alpha Green Lowe in Jefferson Mills, Coos County, New Hampshire. Lowe’s grandfather, Levi Lowe, fought in the Revolutionary War, and his father was a drummer boy in the War of 1812. Both Clovis and Alpha were native New Hampshirites, of pioneer stock and descendants of 17th century Pilgrims. Clovis was a cobbler, but later became a merchant in Jefferson. He dabbled in politics and
was even elected to state legislature at one time. His politics and
opinion were well respected in the state. Versions
of the life of young Thaddeus vary. He was the second child in a family
of five and was named Thaddeus Sobieski Constantine, more than likely
after the character Thaddeus Constantine Sobieski (Tadeusz Kosciuszko) in an 1803 novel ‘’Thaddeus of Warsaw’’ by Scottish author Jane Porter. It
is confused about his life around the age of ten whether his mother had
died and Clovis married Mary Randall, or if Lowe was sent away to
another farm during which time his mother died and his father
remarried. He apparently did work for another farm owned by the
Plaisted’s, but whether or not he lived there is uncertain. Clovis and Mary had seven more children, but there is a timeline confusion
that may indicate she already had children when she married Clovis. What
is consistent in the stories of Lowe are accounts of his insatiable
appetite for learning. He could not read enough material, and he had
questions beyond the answering of his father or teachers. Lowe was also
limited in the amount of time he had for school. His farm chores only
allowed him the three winter months to attend Common School at Jefferson
Hills, two miles away. The school had no books, but like Abraham
Lincoln Thad would spend his evenings in front of the fireplace reading
books loaned from his teacher’s personal library. By age fourteen Thad had ventured out on his own first to Portland, Maine,
then back to Boston where he joined his older brother Joseph in the
shoe [parts] cutting trade. At eighteen Thad became quite ill and
returned home. While he was still recuperating when his younger brother
invited him to attend a chemistry lecture by one Professor Reginald
Dinkelhoff featuring the phenomena of lighter - than - air gases,
specifically hydrogen. When
the Professor requested a volunteer from the audience, an eager
Thaddeus jumped to the fore. Dinkelhoff could see the interest in his
eyes and after the show offered to take him on the road with him as an
assistant. Lowe did so and after two years upon the professor’s
retirement bought out the show using the appellation “Thaddeus Sobieski
Counlicourt Lowe, Professor of Chemistry.” In
1855, at one of his lectures, he was introduced to a pretty Parisian
actress, 19 year old Leontine Augustine Gaschon. (Her father was a
palace guard of King Louis Phillipe who fled to the U.S. as a political
refugee.) A
week later, on February 14, 1855, Thaddeus and Leontine wed. Their
union would produce ten children, seven girls and three boys. Lowe
continued with his scientific endeavors and the dream of owning his own
balloon with the wild idea of making a transatlantic flight via the high winds he observed. He pored over the book of John Wise, A System of Aeronautics which had specific instructions for the construction of aerostats, the cutting, the sewing, the leak proofing. In 1857 Lowe built and piloted his first balloon in tethered flight at a small farm in Hoboken, New Jersey. Thad’s father joined in the balloon making business and had become an accomplished aeronaut himself. In 1858 the Lowes built the larger balloon Enterprise and several others. Lowe continued with his scientific endeavors and avocation to make a transatlantic flight via the high winds. In 1859 Lowe began the construction of a mammoth balloon to be named the City of New York.
Meanwhile he espoused the theory of transatlantic flight to many who
had stock market interests in Europe. The recently laid transatlantic
cable had failed, and sea travel was undependably slow. He amassed
supporters from all corners of the business and scientific communities,
in particular one Prof. Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian Institution who wrote: Lowe's latest mammoth balloon, the City of New York,
was a massive 103 - foot (31.394 m.) diameter balloon with an 11-1/2
ton (10,432.6 kg) lift capacity (on coke gas, 22-1/2 ton
[20,411.6 kg.] on hydrogen), which included a 20 - foot (6 m.)
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. 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 500 feet (152.4 m.) above the White House. In the telegraph message Lowe asserted: Lowe was competing for the position with three other prominent balloonists, John Wise, John LaMountain, and brothers Ezra Allen and James Allen. Wise and LaMountain were old critics of Lowe, but were not able to obtain the assignment so easily. Lowe's first outing was at the First Battle of Bull Run, with General Irvin McDowell and the Army of Northeastern Virginia.
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 after
landing, he had twisted his ankle and was not able to walk out with
them. They returned to Fort Corcoran to report his position. Eventually
his wife Leontine, disguised as an old hag, came to his rescue with a
buckboard and canvas covers and was able to extract him and his
equipment safely. Word of his exploits got back to the President, who ordered General 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 seven) balloons equipped with
mobile 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, never receiving military commissions,
a dangerous position lest any one of the men be captured as spies and
summarily executed. Lowe went on to serve in the Peninsula Campaign of 1862, making observations over Mechanicsville, Virginia, and the ensuing Battle of Seven Pines or Fair Oaks. During his ascent in the Intrepid over the Battle of Seven Pines, his observations of the oncoming Confederate Army and the timely manner in which he reported troop movements saved the isolated army of General Samuel P. 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 later 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,
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. Lowe sought to recuperate from the effects of malaria and the fatigue of war. He and Leontine returned to Jefferson, New Hampshire, where he spent time with his family. He had a month’s return to
Washington in the fall of 1863 to complete his war report to the
Secretary, then returned home to buy a farm near Valley Forge, where the
farming life allowed him to recompose himself. The
advanced techniques of aerial reconnaissance developed by Lowe became
influential around the world, Great Britain, France, even Brazil offered
him the position of major - general if he were to organize a balloon
corps for them. Having had enough of war, he declined the offer, but he
did send them a balloon with equipment including portable generators. He
consulted with their military experts and recruited his best aeronauts,
the Allen brothers, to assist them. During his Civil War days, Lowe had met a German youth nosing around the army balloon camp. The young man’s name was Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin,
who shared his own fascination with aeronautics. General McClellan had
put all balloon ride - alongs off limits, so Lowe sent von Zeppelin to Poolesville to
visit with his German assistant aeronaut John Steiner who could
entertain the lad in his own language. Von Zeppelin returned in the
1870s to interview Lowe on all of his aeronautic techniques. Count von
Zeppelin later designed the dirigible aircraft that bore his name. Lowe 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,
including his perfected “Compression Ice Machine” which would
revolutionize the cold storage industry. He even discovered that gas
burning through a platinum mantle produced a bright illumination (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 Medal for the Invention Held to be Most Useful to Mankind. In 1873, Lowe developed and patented the water gas process by which large amounts of hydrogen gas could be generated for residential and commercial use in heating and lighting. Unlike the common coal gas, or coke gas which was used in municipal service, this gas provided a more efficient heating fuel. The process used the water gas shift reaction: The process was discovered by the passing of high - pressure steam over hot coal,
the major source of coke gas. Lowe's process improved upon the chimney
systems by which the coal could remain superheated thereby maintaining a
consistently high supply of the gas. This process created a
thermo - chemical reaction of applying hydrogen, in the steam, to carbon monoxide, in the coke gas. The reaction produced carbon dioxide and pure hydrogen
which after a process of cooling and "scrubbing," passing through water vapor, left just a pure hydrogen gas. The process spurred on the industry of gas manufacturing, and gasification plants were established quickly along the Eastern seaboard of the United States. Similar processes, like the Haber Process, led to the manufacture of ammonia (NH3) by the combining of nitrogen, found inair, with high volumes of hydrogen. This spurred on the refrigeration industry which long used ammonia as its refrigerant.
Prof. Lowe also held several patents on artificial ice making machines,
and was able to run successful businesses in cold storage as well as
products which operated on hydrogen gas.
In 1887, Lowe moved to Los Angeles and in 1890 to Pasadena, California, where he built a 24,000 square foot (2200 m2)
mansion. He started a water - gas company, founded the Citizens Bank of
Los Angeles, established several ice plants, and bought a Pasadena opera house. Early Pasadenans always had a dream of a scenic mountain railroad to the crest of the San Gabriel Mountains. It was one David J. Macpherson,
a civil engineer graduate of Cornell University, who had the general
plans for just such a railroad. He was introduced to Prof. Lowe with the
idea of joining Macpherson’s plans and Lowe’s money together in one
venture. In 1891, Lowe and Macpherson incorporated the Pasadena & Mount Wilson Railroad (later the Mount Lowe Railway). Unable to obtain all the rights of way to Mt. Wilson,
the two men redirected their railway toward Oak Mountain via the Echo
promontory. The difference between this and any other scenic mountain
railway of its kind was that it was an all-electric traction trolley (streetcar), the only one of its kind to ever exist. Oak Mountain was later renamed Mount Lowe, and to make it official, Andrew McNally, the co-founder of the map printing company Rand McNally who had moved to Altadena, had the name Mt. Lowe printed on all his maps. 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 (850 m) 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 (11.265 km) 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 (406.4 mm) 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. Lowe died at his daughter's Pasadena, California,
home at age 80 after a few years of failing health. Lowe was buried at
Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena, California, Next to him lies his
wife Leontine, who died a year later. Also buried near the Lowe monument
are his two sons, Leon and Sobieski, and other family members. Many of
the family members returned to the East Coast. A nearby monument has
been separately erected for his son Thaddeus and his wife. Thaddeus Lowe's granddaughter Pancho Lowe Barnes was also an aviation pioneer. The Mount Lowe Railway was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 6, 1993. The mountain itself still bears his name. Lowe is a member of the U.S. Army Military Intelligence Hall of Fame. Lowe Army Heliport at Fort Rucker, Alabama, is named in his honor. |