As the nation prepares to send astronauts to Mars by 2030, aviation has come a long way since the first manned balloon flight by Jean Pierre Blanchard across the Delaware River.
“If you ask most schoolchildren and probably most adults where aviation history begins in the United States, their answer is the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in 1903,” noted historian Hoag Levins. “But the community of modern-day air balloonists across the country are keenly aware that the accurate answer to that question is actually Jean Pierre Blanchard, Philadelphia to Deptford, 1793.
“And that’s why the nation’s balloonists feel so strongly about this site and why they played such a major role in the 1993, 200th anniversary celebration of the Blanchard balloon flight landing site.”
The township site – which also commemorates the Clement Oak tree that was more than 400 years old when it was destroyed by a storm five years ago – is now overgrown with weeds and inaccessible to the public. It’s located behind a 6-foot high fence near the Walmart store on Clements Bridge Road.
Levins, publications director for the Gloucester County Historical Society, said he had trouble finding the site recently.
“It’s like a jungle back there,” he described. “The jungle has reclaimed it.”
The society’s mandate is to advocate for the preservation of local historic areas, and Levins would like to see the Blanchard site cleaned up, refurbished and easily accessed by visitors in time for the 250th anniversary of the U.S. next year.
When the Walmart Supercenter in Deptford was built in 2008, it was agreed that the company would maintain the First Flight and Clement Oak site.
“Walmart did do that for some years, but in recent years – I estimate that to be about five years ago – it stopped maintaining the site,” Levins acknowledged.
In an interview with the historical society, Deptford Mayor Paul Medany explained why.
“During the original approval process for the Walmart Supercenter, the applicant agreed to maintain the property. For several years after opening, that did in fact happen. (It) has certainly not occurred in recent years.
“We don’t have the municipal funds to maintain this area, and we are going to contact the current management to encourage them to adhere to the original approval and return to maintaining this most historic property.”
“As the country approaches its 250th anniversary, should we abandon and forget the physical historic site that was the 1793 landing spot of the nation’s first manned balloon flight?” asked Levins, who is spearheading efforts to address the situation.
Willing to help him are members of the Aero Club of Pennsylvania, said Past President Debbie Harding, who is the owner/operator of Air Ventures Hot Balloon Flights Inc. in Pennsylvania. She will bring the subject up at club’s next board meeting in October.
“We are an all-volunteer club and any money raised goes into our scholarship fund,” Harding pointed out. “As individuals, we do give quite freely with our time for projects such as these. I can speak for the club in offering verbal alignment and I can see an opportunity asking for volunteers to help clean up the area from our club members, including past scholarship recipients, as a way of paying it forward.
“It really could be a cool and unique opportunity for Walmart to show community support,” she added. “They have grant money available for such things, not in the way of individual payment of wages but certainly (it) could provide water; lunch for a clean-up crew; and the necessary shovels, rakes, pruners, chainsaws, wheel barrows and dumpster space, while getting a good name for themselves back in the community.”
In a 1993 celebration of the balloon flight’s 200th anniversary, Deptford joined with the First Air Voyage in America (FAVIA 200 Inc.) – an organization of ballooning enthusiasts based in Scranton, Pennsylvania – to rededicate the historic landing site, according to Levins.
Installed was a large bronze marker that reads: “This plaque rededicates the landing site of Jean Pierre Blanchard’s ascension from Philadelphia, on this, the 200th anniversary of the first air voyage in America.”
When Benjamin Franklin witnessed that voyage while in France, he was asked “What good is a balloon?” His answer? “What good is a newborn baby?”
Franklin saw the value immediately, not just in air travel, but also observation by air for military reasons and for areas like weather and space exploration.
“This was the infancy of a whole new world of possibilities and discoveries,” Harding maintained.
Ten years later, on Jan. 9, 1793, both Franklin and President George Washington attended the first air voyage in America at what was then the U.S. capital in Philadelphia, Harding said. Blanchard launched from a yard at the Walnut Street prison, where the Penn Mutual Life insurance building now stands.
Washington provided Blanchard with a “letter of passage” asking whomever he should meet on landing not to fear it and to offer support for reuniting the pilot at quarters where he started from in Philly.
Chartered in 1910, the Aero Club’s mission “has always been to support general aviation by preserving its local history and supporting access to aviation by the local community by supporting the art, the science and the sport of aviation,” Harding emphasized, adding that the club offers scholarships to those seeking aviation careers.
“We are happy to help raise community awareness about the value of preserving this piece of unique local aviation history,” Harding offered. “There is still a beautifully hand-carved plaque commemorating the first ascension in the Penn Mutual Life insurance building that is open to the public.
“It would be lovely to share an equally cared-for marker in Deptford – something unique to this community and something to be proud of, besides being a fun story to share with our future aviation inventors, scientists and sportsmen,” she added.
“Historians have pointed out that the 1793 flight was not just a spectacle,” Levins confirmed. “Blanchard performed measurements (altitude, pulse, air samples and magnetism) during his trip, underscoring the scientific curiosity of the era.
“The presence of figures such as President Washington and other top government officials at the scene in what was then the nation’s capital lent both legitimacy and visibility to scientific discovery,” Levins continued, “connecting ballooning with national pride, innovation and public imagination in the newly established United States.”
Ironically, while the physical site of the Blanchard landing has been abandoned over the years, Deptford’s town fathers made it a central touchstone of the township’s civic identity – and its balloon a proud symbol of that heritage, according to Levins.
The balloon is the central element of the official township emblem above the front door of the municipal building and on other municipal signage across the area, including the water tower.
For more information go to www.gchsnj.org.
