Washington Harrison Donaldson was the son of David Donaldson, an artist of no mean ability of Philadelphia, where the boy was born October 10, 1840. The mother, of straight descent from a line of patriots active during the Revolution, gave the boy the name of Washington; the father, an ardent worker for General Harrison's candidacy for the presidency in the "Tippecanoe-and-Tyler-too" campaign, added the name of Harrison. It is not conceivable that this christening with two names so closely linked with notable deeds of high emprise in the early history of this country, had its influence upon the boy.
As a mere youth he showed the most adventurous spirit and ardent ambition to excel his mates, to do deeds of skill and dexterity that others could not do. When still a child he was running up an unsupported eight-foot ladder, and balancing himself upon the topmost round in a way to startle the cleverest professional athletes. A little later, getting hold of any old rope, stretching it in any old way as a "slack-rope," he was busy perfecting himself as a slack-rope walker. Naturally, school held him only a very few years, for his type of mind obviously was not that of a student.
While still in early youth, he got his father's consent to work in the parental studio, and persevered long enough to acquire some ability in sketching. Later he employed this art in illustrating some of his aerial voyages. During these studio days he studied legerdemain and ventriloquism, and became one of the most expert sleight-of-hand wizards and ventriloquial entertainers of his time.
Donaldson's first appearance before the public was at the old Long's Varieties on South Third Street in Philadelphia. His feats as a rope-walker have probably never been surpassed. In 1862 a rope twelve hundred feet long was stretched across the Schuylkill River at Philadelphia at a height of twelve hundred feet above the water. After passing back and forth repeatedly over this rope, he finished his exhibition by leaping from a rope into the river from a height of approximately ninety feet. Two years later he successfully walked a rope eighteen hundred feet long and two hundred feet high, stretched across the Genesee Falls at Rochester, N. Y. Five years later he was riding a velocipede on a tight-wire from stage to gallery of a Philadelphia theatre, the first to do this performance.
Thus his years were spent between 1857 and 1871; and great as were the dangers and severe the tasks incident to this period of his career, to him it was not work but the play he loved. While the work in itself was not one to emulate—for there are perhaps few less useful tasks than those that made up his occupation—nevertheless, he was training himself for his career; and the absolute mastery over it which he accomplished, the boldness with which he did it, the readiness, certainty, and complete success with which he carried out everything he undertook make a lesson worth studying.
Donaldson's career as an aeronaut was brief. His first ascent was made August 30, 1871; his last, July 15, 1875. The story of the first is characteristic of the man. In his lexicon there was no such word as "fail." His balloon was small, holding only eight thousand cubic feet of gas. The gas was of poor quality, and when ready to rise he found it impossible even to make a start until all ballast had been thrown from the basket; and when at length the start was made, it was only to alight in a few minutes on the roof of a neighboring house. Bent upon winning and doing at all hazards what he had undertaken, Donaldson quickly cast overboard all loose objects in the basket—ropes, anchors, provisions, even down to his boots and coat. Thus relieved of weight, he was able to make a voyage of about eighteen miles.
There are two essentials to safe ballooning: first, the easy working of the cord which controls the safety valve at the top of the netting, by which descent may be effected when the balloon is going too high; and surplus ballast, which may be thrown out to lighten the balloon when approaching the ground, to avoid striking the earth at dangerously rapid speed. Hence it followed that, his car having been stripped of every bit of weight to obtain the ascent, Donaldson's descent was so violent that he was not a little bruised before he got his balloon safety [Transcriber's note: safely?] anchored again upon the earth.
The difficulties and risks of this first trip, arising from the poor appliances he had, were enough to discourage, if not deter, a heart less bold than his, but to him a new difficulty only meant the letting out of another reef in his resolution to conquer it. Thus it was that immediately upon his return from this, his first trip, he not only announced that he would make another ascent the ensuing week, but that he would undertake something never previously undertaken in aerial navigation, namely, that he would dispense with the basket or car swung beneath the concentrating ring of every normal balloon, and in its place would have nothing but a simple trapeze bar suspended beneath the ring, upon which in mid-air, at high altitude, he proposed to perform all feats done by then most highly trained gymnasts in trapeze performances.
His experience on this first trip, to quote his own phraseology, was "so glorious that I decided to abandon the tight-rope forever."
The second ascent was made in a light breeze. When approximately a mile in height, to quote a chronicler: