On our last trip to Old Sturbridge Village Jan & I were sitting on a bench at the town common when a young lady came along pushing a wheelbarrow.

As we watched she stopped in the middle of the roadway and was met by another young girl who helped her take a sheetmetal stove out of the wheelbarrow and started filling it with schreded paper, which they lit on fire, then as the smoke was rising they began dropping pieces of charcoal down the smoke stack until the fire was hot enough to quit smoking.

As soon as they determined the fire was hot enough they carefully lifted a home made tissue paper balloon out of the wheelbarrow and held it over the heater so the balloon would fill with hot air.

Once the balloon was filled with hot air they released it and Voila', Up, UP and away it went, flying about 90 seconds are reaching an altitude of about 200'.

What I found most interesting was that Old Sturbridge Village is depicting life in early America from 1790 -1830.

The details for making that heater and balloon were found in original documents from that time period but what was even more important, The Montgolfier Bros. in France had launched the worlds first manned hot air ballon a mere 7yrs earlier in 1783. Given the time frame making and launching a toy hot air balloon in those days would be synonamous with flying radio controlled model airplanes or making toy rockets today.