Henry & others:

One of the GREAT resources for those of us who write about/study
Virginia is the Petersburg newspaper index, which still sits in the
Petersburg public library in its old, card-catalogue format.  Virtually
anything of consequence was indexed by someone/some people with -- thank
the Lord -- FAR too much time on their hands.  It is digitized on the
LVA website -- check under "Newspapers" in "What We Have."

It took a small bit of inventiveness to find the source (I used
"balloon" and "words anywhere") in question, but here is the link.

http://ajax.lva.lib.va.us/F/8Y48HC6IXTXV2MHDYTSSGPSTVD416P6BPEL9H59TQB5I
Q1QYX5-01759?func=full-set-set&set_number=001415&set_entry=000001&format
=999

Cheers, all.

Jim Watkinson

James D. Watkinson, Ph.D.
Archives
Library of Virginia
[log in to unmask]
804.692.3804

-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
Sent: Friday, December 10, 2004 10:40 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Balloon ascents in Virginia, 1820s-1840s

Does anyone know of sources about the history of balloon ascents in
Virginia?

I'm at work on a book about Jefferson and his slaves, and I'm trying to
track down information about a balloon ascent in Petersburg mentioned in
a
memoir by Isaac Jefferson, former slave of TJ.  Isaac stated in 1847:

"Sally [Hemings] had a son named Madison, who learned to be a great
fiddler.  He has been in Petersburg twice: was here when the balloon
went
up--the balloon that Beverly sent off."

Isaac Jefferson was in the Richmond/Petersburg area beginning in the mid
1820s.  In her book on TJ and Hemings, Annette Gordon-Reed writes that a
balloon ascent took place in Petersburg July 4, 1834, citing "The Eagle
Aloft : Two Centuries of the Balloon in America" by Tom Crouch (1983).
I'm wondering if there are other sources.

Many thanks,
Henry Wiencek
Charlottesville

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