{"id":12190,"date":"2014-07-23T07:47:24","date_gmt":"2014-07-23T04:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tentaclii.wordpress.com\/?p=12190"},"modified":"2014-07-23T07:47:24","modified_gmt":"2014-07-23T04:47:24","slug":"lovecraft-in-a-balloon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/2014\/07\/23\/lovecraft-in-a-balloon\/","title":{"rendered":"Lovecraft in a balloon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In 1910 the 20 year-old H.P. Lovecraft visited the Brockton Fair, about midway between Boston and Providence.  He later remembered&#8230; &#8220;the balloon in which I ascended at Brockton in 1910&#8221; in a postcard home, 29th August 1929. <\/p>\n<p>Brockton Fair appears to have been a typical late-autumn country fair, with horse shows, athletics, agricultural produce and livestock displays, horse races, a fashion and flower show, airborne stunts with a blimp and an early airplane, and fireworks.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jurn.link\/tentaclii\/oldimages\/57.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jurn.link\/tentaclii\/oldimages\/57.jpg?w=529\" alt=\"$_57\" width=\"529\" height=\"335\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-12191\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jurn.link\/tentaclii\/oldimages\/brocktonfair1910.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jurn.link\/tentaclii\/oldimages\/brocktonfair1910.jpg?w=529\" alt=\"brocktonfair1910\" width=\"529\" height=\"331\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-12192\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The ride was presumably run by Brockton Balloon Company, owned by Professor B.S. Tirrell.  Tirrell took the ballon high enough to have people perform skydiving\/parachute acts from the basket, and presumably went to much the same height for his passengers.  He also set off each day&#8217;s finale fireworks from the balloon while in mid-air, at evening. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jurn.link\/tentaclii\/oldimages\/brockton.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jurn.link\/tentaclii\/oldimages\/brockton.jpg?w=529\" alt=\"brockton\" width=\"529\" height=\"238\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-12193\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>One postcard shows the balloon at the Fair, c.1910&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jurn.link\/tentaclii\/oldimages\/brockbal.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jurn.link\/tentaclii\/oldimages\/brockbal.jpg?w=529\" alt=\"brockbal\" width=\"529\" height=\"341\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-12194\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Lovecraft might also have seen Indians there&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Passamaquody Indians came from Maine and set up their tepees in the woods east of the racing track. They sold baskets, jewelry and other items and put on demonstrations.&#8221; (Lois Crymble Thomas, grandaughter of one of the fair&#8217;s founders)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1910 the 20 year-old H.P. Lovecraft visited the Brockton Fair, about midway between Boston and Providence. He later remembered&#8230; &hellip;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/2014\/07\/23\/lovecraft-in-a-balloon\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-historical-context"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12190\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}