Eugene Robertson Balloon Ascent from Castle Garden

Original title (French): Ascension d'Eug^e. Robertson du Castle Garden, a New-York, le 10 Octobre, 1826. Print on paper, lithograph by Godefroy Engelmann (1788−1839). Source: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

Illustration depicted adventure by balloonist Guillaume Eugène Robertson (1799−1838), reported to have been watched by 50 thousand people. He, accompanied by a woman, made his last ascent in New York from Castle Garden at the Battery, on October 10, 1826, before leaving for Mexico. The gas balloon was surrounded by four satellite balloons. They landed at Union, a small village near Elizabethtown. Robertson also performed ascents in New Orleans, Mexico, the Antilles and Europe, making a parachute jump of 15, 000 feet in Lisbon, Portugal. Robertson died of yellow fever in Veracruz, Mexico, in 1838. His father and his brother Dimitri were also well-known balloonists.

The first actual ascension of a person in a balloon in New York was performed on August 2, 1819, by Frenchman Louis Charles Guillé. He ascended in a balloon full of hydrogen gas from Vauxhall Garden to a height of 1,500 fathoms. He landed across the East River by means of a parachute. In October 1825, a woman, Madame Johnson, ascended in a balloon from Castle Garden. On September 9, 1830, Charles E. Durant became the first U.S. citizen to fly a balloon. He ascended from Castle Garden, flew about 25 miles, in three hours, and landed in Perth Amboy, New Jersey.