Frederick Marriott

Frederick Marriott (16 July 1805, Enfield, England

He was described by the publisher of the newspaper Northern Indianian, 19 March 1874 as "an English gentlemen, of eccentric habits, much shrewdness and enterprise, and entire originality".

Marriott is credited with inventing the term "aeroplane", and intended to build an air transport system that would bring people from New York to California without the perils of the normal voyage of the 19th century. The company he formed (with Andrew Smith Hallidie) in 1866 was named the Aerial Steam Navigation Company.

Publisher Graphic Chart of the City and County of San Francisco, revised and drawn by L.R. Townsend, E. Wyneken and J. Mendenhall, April 1875. Published by the San Francisco News Letter (by Frederick Marriott, publisher).

Marriott was a founder of The Illustrated London News.

The California China Mail and Flying Dragon was a Chinese-language publication and one of the first sources of advertisements encouraging Chinese emigrants to work on the Western railway. It was subtitled "Issued Every China Steamer Day."

The California News Notes was illustrated and many of the woodcuts, typically depicting the linkages of various railway lines, remain popular with collectors.

As a publisher, Marriott was one of the first to print works by Mark Twain and other distinguished writers Bret Harte, Frank Pixley, Ambrose Bierce and Daniel O’Connell.

Avitor In 1841 in London, England, Marriott was one of three board members of the Aerial Transit Company along with John Stringfellow and William Samuel Henson. Marriott was responsible for the illustrations and publicity campaign for their planned aerial steam carriage the Ariel. The aircraft captured the imagination of the public and the company constructed and flew a small glider, but after a failure to build a larger working model and lacking funds, the company failed. Henson married and relocated to the United States, while Stringfellow continued aeronautical experiments. Marriott moved to California during the Gold Rush of 1849.

The 1869 stock market crash stymied Marriott's efforts to fly a lighter-than-air craft, although he did continue to work on a heavier-than-air triplane all the way until his death. John Joseph Montgomery was inspired by these experiments. Two years before Marriott's death, in 1882, the Aerial Steam Navigation Company was refinanced, and Augustus Laver, architect of The James C. Flood Mansion and The Ellen Kenna House, was named Consulting Engineer of the company.

Frederick Marriott died in San Francisco on 16 December 1884. The Illustrated London News Chat Emperor Norton William Henry Rhodes Zachariah Montgomery William Chapman Ralston