On April 12, 1861, the first shot of the American Civil War was fired just before sunrise at Fort Sumter, South Carolina.  Eight days later, Professor Thaddeus Lowe left Cincinnati Ohio in his hot air balloon, The Enterprise, bound for Washington, D.C.   After traveling nine hours and eight hundred miles, he landed “slightly” off course in … Continue reading STEPHEN FOWLER (1798-1866) son of Ephraim