| BROCKVILLE RECORDER & TIMES
Back in 1915 Brockvillians and their mayor became the butt of countless jokes after they sent warning to Ottawa that German aircraft had flown over Brockville and were heading for the capital. The next day they discovered that the mysterious aircraft had really only been toy fireworks balloons sent up by boys in Morristown. But were they? Recent research by the Canadian Registry of Paranormal Activity, based in St. Catharines, supports the notion that what the townspeople saw on that rainy St. Valentine's night probably was a dirigible, though not one loaded with bombs and piloted by airmen from distant Germany. On Sunday evening, February 14, 1915, as war was being waged in Europe against the German Kaiser's armies, the people of Brockville were leaving their evening church services and heading home in the rain when about 8:10 p.m. they heard and saw what some thought were "aeroplanes" in the air. Vivid flashes of light illuminated the town and some began to say it was from search lights on enemy planes, looking for targets below. Mayor Allan S. Donaldson either telephoned or telegraphed (reports vary) Prime Minister Robert Borden in Ottawa to warn him of the approaching planes. As a result, the Parliament Buildings were darkened, sharp shooters were posted, and surrounding communities were alerted to keep watch. Next day, however, according to a dispatch from Ogdensburg to The Evening Recorder: "Young men living in Morristown said today that shortly after nine o'clock last night they sent up three fireworks balloons, each of which exploded high in air above Brockville. Believed those balloons were mistaken for aeroplanes." BALLOON WAS FOUND In fact, a burned-out balloon was found on the ice of the St. Lawrence in front of the psychiatric hospital. But no newspaper accounts picked up on the discrepancy in timing: the boy's balloons went up at 9 p.m. but the aircraft and flashing lights were first spotted at 8:10 p.m. Brockvillians want to put the whole thing behind them as soon as possible. Typical of the gibes the community had to endure was the comment in the Guelph Herald, quoted in Brockville's The Evening Recorder of February 18, 1915: "It has remained for sleepy Brockville to furnish the real joke of the year. Imagine it getting all Canada excited, causing the members of Parliament to lose a good night's sleep, placing the capital in darkness and dread of aerial bombs... all because some youths on the American side, celebrating 100 years of peace, sent off a few toy fire balloons." The Evening Recorder shot back: "It would require more than the Kaiser's entire fleet of Zeppelins to arouse that old 'sleepy hollow' of Guelph." Some verses of The Saving of Ottawa, a "heroic ballad" on the incident, penned by Bernard K. Sandwell, suffice to illustrate the general public attitude toward the erstwhile saviors of the country: "The mayor of Brockville gazed on high, And the red stars sped to the northern sky And 'They're gone too far for a shot,' said he 'And besides we've no artillery.' Then he wrung his hands, and his face looked ill. And 'They're heading,' he groaned, 'for Parliament Hill.' The mayor of Brockville sat and wrote With a fountain pen from his red waist coat. His brain was clear, though his heart beat wild And in seven minutes the stuff was filed... So the mayor of Brockville has set his name For ever more on the scroll of fame For he it was who saved this land (For which we'll give him a medal grand, With his name in full on the front exerque) From the toy balloons of Ogdensburg." Too bad Mayor Donaldson did not live to see a recent press release issued by Robert McConnell of the Canadian Registry of Paranormal Activity. The mayor, it seems, was not so far off the track, after all. McConnell's research into strange sightings of "airships" along the St. Lawrence in the 1890s and early 1900s has led him to conclude that people were actually seeing dirigibles. In particular, he focuses on the airships built and flown by U.S. entrepreneur Edward Joel Pennington from 1895 into the twentieth century. Pennington planned to open a dirigible passenger service between Chicago and New York. In the years before 1900 he ran test flights in the American Midwest, and twice in 1897 airships landed and startled farmers who came upon them. WERE FLOWN AT NIGHT The airships were flown at night, said the pilot of one of the 1897 craft, "because the huge wings of his ship tended to attract too much attention during the day time." An ordinary (but bright) locomotive head lamp lit the way, and electrical gadgets and a secret propulsion mechanism were used to fly it. McConnell quotes, from Gateway to Oblivion, by Hugh Cochrane, a reference to a New York Times account of the February 14 sightings. It pointed out that Gananoque and Morristown also saw the aircraft traveling northeast, and later saw them returning southwest, pausing along the way. Pennington's airships, unlike balloons that were at the mercy of the wind, could fly against the wind, and travel in directions chosen by the pilot. They appear to have been semi-rigid dirigibles, with aluminum frames covered with canvas or other fabric. McConnell maintains that there would have been no flap and furor at all if Canadian communication systems of the time had been adequate to keep people informed of aeronautical developments south of the border. He say this "drift in time" explains why Canadians did not realize that what flew over Brockville could have been a dirigible that had lost its way.
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