Today -100: October 19, 1910: Of the America, divorce, and late starts

The America was crippled by, you know, wind. The crew and cat escaped in a lifeboat and were picked up by the steamer Trent 400 miles east of the North Carolina coast. The airship was blown away, never to be seen again. Walter Wellman provides a lengthy account to the Times. He blames the equilibrator, which was too heavy. Still, the America covered 1,000 miles in 71 hours, which was a record.

Wellman lived until 1934 and never left the ground again.

The Episcopalians now ban any member who has had a divorce from re-marrying. Previously, the innocent party could do so.

One of the Democratic candidates for governor of Massachusetts, Charles Hamlin (later the first chairman of the Fed), breaks the deadlock by withdrawing, so Eugene Foss will soon probably become the party nominee, less than 3 weeks before the election (Frederick Mansfield, who was named by the party convention as a holding candidate when they couldn’t settle on a real one, also has to be convinced to withdraw).

Spoiler alert: Foss will win the election, despite all the chaos. It’s really not the Republicans’ year.