Not counting the number of times that he fell out of trees. and off cliffs and bridges and other high places because he couldn't stop climbing in an attempt to regain that feeling he'd felt when he had soared, Harailt's next crash had taken place in the early Nineteenth Century. It wasn't as if Harailt had been deliberately and repeatedly committing suicide in the centuries between that day he'd soared on the back of a kite in the Sixteenth and the day he had seen that balloon flying over New York in the Nineteenth, but knowing that he wouldn't permanently die had taken away a great deal of his fear of falling which had made him take risks no sane person would have. Risks such as leaping from one unsteady tree branch to another like an over-sized squirrel, or standing too close to the edge of a cliff when he was being battered about by hurricane force winds.
He had immigrated to the Colonies back in the 1750s, and had settled in New York after the end of the Revolutionary War. The war, like the war that had come later was rather divisive, and had caused conflict amongst families. His family had been no exception in that regard. The son he had adopted when he had married the boy's widowed mother had decided to run off and join the British Army while he did his best to defend his homestead which eventually became the site of a minor battle. His wife had died in childbirth during the war, but he had forgiven her because going so many years without children would be hard on a woman, especially back then when people thought there was something seriously wrong with them when they had none. With nothing to tie him to the farm, as his adopted son had moved to England when the British Army had pulled out, he had decided it was time to move again. He'd stayed too long anyways, and people were starting to give him the sort of looks that meant trouble.
It had been in New York that Harailt had first seen the balloon, and decided he wanted one. As he had a bit of extra money at the time thanks to the fact that one of his more insane investments had paid off, he had been able to buy the parts necessary to construct one. After a couple months of hard work, he had a prototype that was ready for a test flight.
His first time out, everything went fine until he got a little low on fuel. Alright, he ran out of fuel before he was ready to land.
As they say, what goes up must come down. Harailt came down and the basket of his balloon got caught in a tree.
He then spent the entire night in the tree trying to figure out how to get his balloon out of and off of the tree without damaging it too badly.
His second flight of course went much more smoothly.
