keep in shape; Hawley was a sober-suited stockbroker, less impulsive and more cerebral than his friend, and his portly frame betrayed his fondness for a long lunch. The two were opposites in physique and temperament, but they complemented one another perfectly.
What won Post over was the revelation that the balloon would be the America II , which had won the USA the International Balloon Cup in 1909. It was considered a “lucky balloon,” and Post couldn’t resist its pull. He agreed to join Hawley after the Boston Air Show, and in the second week of September they were reunited in Indianapolis.
On September 17 the America II and eight other balloons rose into the air hoping to win the right to represent the USA in the International Balloon Cup the following month. The selection procedure was simple: the three balloons that covered the greatest distance before landing would be chosen. One by one the balloons came to earth, first the New York after only 185 miles, then the Pennsylvania II , then Hossler . . . until only the America II remained airborne. Post and Hawley finally landed in Warrenton, Virginia, 450 miles east of Indianapolis, after a flight time of forty-eight hours and twenty-three minutes. It was a new American endurance record for a balloon, and Hawley told reporters they could have gone on longer but came down “for fear of being blown into Chesapeake Bay.” It had been a memorable trip, but, he added, “While we were passing above Noble County, Ohio, on Sunday evening I distinctly heard two bullets whistle past my ears . . . The government should take steps at once to protect balloonists who are likely to be killed at any time by ignorant or vicious countrymen who persist in firing at them as they fly above farms.” That he and Post had not been shot down was pure luck, and for that they thanked the continued good fortune of America II.
In New York there was little interest in the balloon race about to start in St. Louis, nor was there much enthusiasm for Walter Wellman and what the New York Sun called his “mad enterprise.” All eyes were on Belmont Park and the forthcoming International Aviation Meet, even though it was still a week away. The Sunday edition of the New York American carried a photograph of Glenn Curtiss greeting two of the French aviators, Count Jacques de Lesseps and Hubert Latham, as they stepped off the steamship La Lorraine twenty-four hours earlier. Both men had expressed their pleasure to be in New York and their eagerness to begin tuning up their aircraft. The race organizers took the Frenchmen to lunch at the Café Martin, and later, when the six-foot-tall count, who was the tenth child of Ferdinand de Lesseps, builder of the Suez Canal, arrived at his apartment at the St. Regis Hotel, he was asked by a reporter what had impressed him most about New York. “Your Fifth Avenue and the constant stream of pretty women passing along it,” replied the twenty-seven-year-old, with the earnest appreciation of a connoisseur. “I think your American women are the personification of elegance and ‘chic.’ They are admirable.”
Hubert Latham had checked into the the Knickerbocker Hotel (now known as 6 Times Square), an Astor establishment on the corner of Broadway and Forty-second Street, and he was soon sitting at the bar admiring the magnificent twenty-eight-foot-long mural, Old King Cole and His Fiddlers Three , by Maxfield Parrish, * and chatting to the bar steward in flawless English. Born in Paris in 1883 to an English father and a French mother, Latham was a slim, well-dressed man with a pallid complexion, visible evidence of his consumption. A Parisian physician had given him a year to live—eighteen months ago. Latham’s grip on life was still strong, and he intended to keep squeezing until the pips squeaked. He was rarely to be seen without a glass in one hand and his long ivory cigarette holder in the other. The ivory reputedly came from the tusks of an elephant
What won Post over was the revelation that the balloon would be the America II , which had won the USA the International Balloon Cup in 1909. It was considered a “lucky balloon,” and Post couldn’t resist its pull. He agreed to join Hawley after the Boston Air Show, and in the second week of September they were reunited in Indianapolis.
On September 17 the America II and eight other balloons rose into the air hoping to win the right to represent the USA in the International Balloon Cup the following month. The selection procedure was simple: the three balloons that covered the greatest distance before landing would be chosen. One by one the balloons came to earth, first the New York after only 185 miles, then the Pennsylvania II , then Hossler . . . until only the America II remained airborne. Post and Hawley finally landed in Warrenton, Virginia, 450 miles east of Indianapolis, after a flight time of forty-eight hours and twenty-three minutes. It was a new American endurance record for a balloon, and Hawley told reporters they could have gone on longer but came down “for fear of being blown into Chesapeake Bay.” It had been a memorable trip, but, he added, “While we were passing above Noble County, Ohio, on Sunday evening I distinctly heard two bullets whistle past my ears . . . The government should take steps at once to protect balloonists who are likely to be killed at any time by ignorant or vicious countrymen who persist in firing at them as they fly above farms.” That he and Post had not been shot down was pure luck, and for that they thanked the continued good fortune of America II.
In New York there was little interest in the balloon race about to start in St. Louis, nor was there much enthusiasm for Walter Wellman and what the New York Sun called his “mad enterprise.” All eyes were on Belmont Park and the forthcoming International Aviation Meet, even though it was still a week away. The Sunday edition of the New York American carried a photograph of Glenn Curtiss greeting two of the French aviators, Count Jacques de Lesseps and Hubert Latham, as they stepped off the steamship La Lorraine twenty-four hours earlier. Both men had expressed their pleasure to be in New York and their eagerness to begin tuning up their aircraft. The race organizers took the Frenchmen to lunch at the Café Martin, and later, when the six-foot-tall count, who was the tenth child of Ferdinand de Lesseps, builder of the Suez Canal, arrived at his apartment at the St. Regis Hotel, he was asked by a reporter what had impressed him most about New York. “Your Fifth Avenue and the constant stream of pretty women passing along it,” replied the twenty-seven-year-old, with the earnest appreciation of a connoisseur. “I think your American women are the personification of elegance and ‘chic.’ They are admirable.”
Hubert Latham had checked into the the Knickerbocker Hotel (now known as 6 Times Square), an Astor establishment on the corner of Broadway and Forty-second Street, and he was soon sitting at the bar admiring the magnificent twenty-eight-foot-long mural, Old King Cole and His Fiddlers Three , by Maxfield Parrish, * and chatting to the bar steward in flawless English. Born in Paris in 1883 to an English father and a French mother, Latham was a slim, well-dressed man with a pallid complexion, visible evidence of his consumption. A Parisian physician had given him a year to live—eighteen months ago. Latham’s grip on life was still strong, and he intended to keep squeezing until the pips squeaked. He was rarely to be seen without a glass in one hand and his long ivory cigarette holder in the other. The ivory reputedly came from the tusks of an elephant
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