Frederick Marriott (1805-1884) was an early aviation pioneer and creator of the Avitor Hermes Jr. which was the first unmanned aircraft to fly under its own power in the United States. Marriott is given credit for coining the term "aeroplane," and intended to build an air transport system that would bring people from New York to California without the perils of the normal voyage (particularly Indians). The company he formed (with Andrew Smith Hallidie) in 1866 was called the Aerial Steam Navigation Company. Andrew Smith Hallidie was born in England. ...

Marriott was described as "an English gentlemen, of eccentric habits, much shrewdness and enterprise, and entire originality" by the publisher of the [Northern Indianian on March 19, 1874].

Publisher

• 1856-1928 San Francisco News Letter and California Advertiser
• London Illustrated News (see Illustrated London News)
• Pacific Coast Mining Journal
• 1867-1876 California China Mail and Flying Dragon
• 1854-1855 California Mail Bag
• California News Notes

The News Letter was officially subtitled, "The Authorized Organ of the Aerial Steam Navigation Company." One of the lead columns in the San Francisco News Letter and California Advertiser was called "Town Crier" and was written by Major Ambrose Bierce. The Illustrated London News was a magazine founded by Herbert Ingram and his friend Mark Lemon, the editor of Punch magazine. ... Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (born June 24, 1842, Meigs County, Ohio, USA – date of death uncertain, possibly December 1913 or early 1914, presumably in Mexico) was an American satirist, and critic, short story writer, editor and journalist. ...

While Marriott's name was mentioned in one reference as a founder of the London Illustrated News, his connection with this publication seems more tenuous. He certainly was not the founder, although he may have worked at the paper which was founded in 1842 in London, at a time when Marriott was already an established publisher, but not, seemingly, associated with the News. The early history of the [London Illustrated News] does not mention Marriott.

The California China Mail and Flying Dragon was a Chinese language publication and one of the first sources of advertisements encouraging Chinese emigrants to work on the Western railway. It was subtitled, "Issued Every China Steamer Day."

The California News Notes was illustrated and many of the beautiful woodcuts remain for sale typically depicting the linkages of various railway lines.

As a publisher, Marriott was one of the first to print works from Mark Twain in his newspapers. Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was a famous and popular American humorist, writer and lecturer. ...

First Flight

In 1841, in London, England, Marriott was one of three board members in the Aerial Transit Company (the other two were John Stringfellow and William Samuel Henson). The first ship created by the company exploded and the second was repossessed.

The Avitor Hermes Jr. was built in the basement of the publishing building largely by candle light and took flight at San Jose's Shellmount Park racetrack near the current San Francisco airport. According to a Scientific American journalist (July 31, 1869) the aircraft took about 6 minutes to fill (it is hard to imagine this is credible as most balloons take a much longer period to fill) and flew at about 5 miles per hour. Upon a subsequent flight, however, the aircraft burned completely and was lost. A replica of the craft is on display at the Hiller Aviation Museum. This was not a manned craft and amounted to a very large model. The Hiller Air Museum, located in San Carlos, California at the San Carlos Airport, is an aircraft history museum. ...

The stock crash of 1870 put an end to the efforts of Marriott to fly a lighter then air plane although he did work on a heavier then air tri-plane in the mid 1870s.

References

• [Twain Quotes]
• [University of Houston, "Engines of Our Ingenuity" #322]
• ["The Beautiful Possiblity," by Paul O'Collins]
• [Holding Record from the University of California, Berkeley for a copy of the California China Mail and Flying Dragon]
• Drury, William, Norton I, Emperor of the United States (Dodd, Mead, & Company, 1986)
• Johnson, Kenneth M., Aerial California. An Account of early Flight in Northern and Southern California, 1849 to World War I (Dawson's Book Shop, 1961)
• Parrramore, Thomas C., First to Fly: North Carolina and the Beginnings of Aviation (University of North Carolina Press, 2002) ISBN 0-8078-2676-6