![]() ![]() ![]() politely offered me a conveyance to the city, which I reached at one o’clock in the morning.”Ī far cry indeed to the days, only some hundred years or so later, when the whirr of one airplane or many as they go over Strafford scarcely causes any one to even look up in the sky!Īs we stated in last week’s column, the decline of the Spread Eagle Inn as a popular hostelry began with the completion of the old Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad, and as time went on it had practically no patronage except that which was local. Horne, of the Spread Eagle, treated me with great kindness, and Dr. ![]() In doing this a cricket was unfortunately included, and having to cut his way out he made the only break in the balloon which occurred on this expedition. The gas was let out and the balloon folded. “Before discharging the gas, several ladies got successively into the car and were let up as far as the anchor rope would permit. M., of Philadelphia, came ot my assistance, and laying hold of the car in which I remained, towed me about a quarter mile to the tavern, where I alighted, balloon and passenger safe and sound. As I descended very slowly, two young gentlemen and Dr. “Warned by the increasing obscurity of the world below, I began to descend and at six o’clock and 20 minutes reached the earth in a fine green field, near the Spread Eagle Inn on the Lancaster Turnpike, 16 miles from Philadelphia. The aeronaut’s description of the incident is as follows: The excitement was caused by the descent of James Mill’s balloon, which had started from Philadelphia at half past five in the afternoon and some two house later had descended in a field near the Inn. Two years before this a most exciting incident occurred in the vicinity of Siterville, as the small settlement around the Inn had come to be called. Siter became owner of that famous tavern, and remained its landlord until 1836 when Stephen Horne, who had been associated with the place for some time, leased the Inn. From time to time various members of the Siter family, of which there are still descendants in Wayne, were associated with the Old Spread Eagle Inn. ![]()
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