July Professor L. made an ascension at Washington, and put at rest a report that the enemy were advancing on that city. At last, on the 2d of August, he was authorized by Captain Whipple to construct a balloon at the expense of government, and during that month and the following autumn frequent ascensions were made, revealing much valuable information of the movements of the enemy.

His practice at first was to inflate the balloon at the gas works in Washington, bear it across the river, and ascend while still attached to guy-ropes. Later he invented apparatus whereby he extracted the necessary hydrogen gas from any pool of water nearest at hand. During his operations near that city, Generals McDowell, Heintzelman, and others, ascended with him, and safely returned. Professor Lowe continued with the army through 1862 and 1863, rendering valuable services, as acknowledged by Generals Stoneman, Sedgwick, and McClellan. General Heintzelman, in Lowe's balloon, was the first to discover the evacuation of Yorktown by the rebels in 1862, and during the whole time of the battle of Fair Oaks, Professor Lowe, in his balloon at a height of two thousand feet, overlooked the fight and reported by telegraph. In addition to Professor L.'s operations with the Army of the Potomac, he made ascensions near Island No. 10 on the Mississippi and near Fort Wagner in South Carolina.

On the 26th of May, 1863, Professor Lowe made a full report of his operations in connection with the army, covering a large amount of correspondence with army officials and scientific men, proving conclusively that he had rendered the government important aid.

Finding that ballooning was uncertain in its returns and unsatisfactory on other accounts, Professor Lowe left Philadelphia in 1863, where he had been residing, and moved to Chester county, near Phoenixville. About this time he announced his celebrated ice-making process, now largely in use in warm climates, and also organized a refrigerating steamship companyfor the preservation and transportation of meats, fruits, and the like. From the experiments then made has since grown an extensive business both on land and water.

After experimenting for a time in the manufacture of gases from petroleum, he brought out his invention of illuminating gas. When the process was patented he introduced it in Phoenixville, Conshohocken, Baltimore, Lancaster, Harrisburg, Indianapolis, and many towns in New York and Canada. Up to this time over thirty cities and towns, aggregating at least a population of one million, are lighted by his process, which appears destined to supercede all the former methods of artificial lighting. It has even been put in operation in France, Sweden, England, and elsewhere. Professor Lowe has also discovered a process of decomposing water in the manufacture of nonilluminating or heating gas, which is perfectly under control, and yet as to the caloric produced, exhibits an immense gain in cost over the use of coal alone.

During the Brazilian war with Paraguay, the Emperor of Brazil, through his minister, purchased his system of aeronautics, with a complete outfit, which was greatly instrumental in bringing that war to an early close, owing to the accurate information given of the location of the enemy. Later the same system was adopted by the English and French governments, and is now a part of their army equipments.

In 1871 Professor Lowe purchased a dwelling on Main street, in the upper part of Norristown, which he has fitted up in munificent style and taste, and where he resides. It is lighted by gas of his own manufacture on the ground, and by the use of his own invented works. In 1875 he organized in the borough of Norristown the People's Fuel and Gas-Light Company. Works were erected at DeKalb and Washington streets for the manufacture of heating and illuminating gas, and in the process to also burn lime as a means of utilizing the waste heat. Owing to the hard times, however, the enterprise, after obtaining a charter, and laying a number of pipes, was disbanded. In 1878 Professor L. took the extensive coal and ice establishment erected by George Zinnel, in the lower part of Norristown, which he has fitted up, and has now therein large experimental gas works in operation, where he exhibits his various patent processes to visitors from abroad, and where he has considerable facilities for the manufacture of the machinery and fix

tures needful to produce his heating and illuminating gases..

Like Fitch, Morse, and other theoretical inventors, Professor Lowe has had to encounter the usual amount of derision and opposition to the progress of his discoveries, and, also like them, expended his own money in experimenting before asking assistance from friends. He is a man of thought and in-genuity, pushing his investigations in nearly every direction connected with chemistry and hydrostatics. The audience room formerly called Zinnel's Hall he has furnished as a lecture room and laboratory, where, with the aid of his scientific apparatus, he explains his inventions to scientists from abroad. Like most other inventors, he is perhaps undervalued and misapprehended by unthinking people. Had he invented a process of turning water into wine-or whiskey-as he has of converting the first substance into hydrogen, and was living idly, enjoying a large fortune acquired thereby, he would be very popular and voted an unbounded success, the prevailing idea being that the genuine is only that which secures "a pile." Professor Lowe's pecuniary success, however, is quite flattering, he receiving a royalty for the use of his gas works established at many places. He has little more than reached middle life, and it is warrantable to suppose that his speculative and fertile mind will grasp and produce other valuable inventions. He has already made a number of ingenious cooking and heating con-trivances for using his heating gas, the right of which he holds for the protection of his business.

Professor Lowe is eminently a domestic man, having a largefamily of children, whose names are as follows: Louisa F., IdaAlpha, Leon Percival, Ava Eugenie, Augustine, Blanche,. Thaddeus, Edna, Zoe, and Sobieski. The three eldest were: born in New York.

1

THE WILLS FAMILY.

MICHAEL WILLS.

Every man is the architect of his own fortune.

Authentic information of the Wills family is in possession of some of its elder branches, dating back before the middle of the last century, now over a hundred and fifty years ago. The tradition is correspondent with the orthography of the namethat it is of English origin, though the earliest known progenitor, whose name stands above, came from Rathdrum, county Wicklow, Ireland, in 1728, whither they probably went, as did also many others, during the Revolution of 1688, in or after the English army. This Michael Wills, as we learn by letters that have descended in the family, came over with the Mathers, and on the voyage, or shortly after, his son, then nineteen, formed the acquaintance of Jane Mather, who was ten years his junior, whom he afterwards married. These letters further show that. Michael Wills left very respectable parentage and other relatives in Ireland, some of whom lived to very great age.*

These and other facts were collected and written in 1870 by Allen Wills, of Downingtown, Chester county, a great-grandson of Michael. Of this correspondence it may be stated that a letter, written in Ireland by William Peters, addressed to Michael Wills, the emigrant's son, and probably in behalf of his grandfather when too old to write it himself, bore date of August 22d, 1743, at which time the recipient was thirty-four years of age. The grandfather must have been of extreme old. age at that time.

Michael Wills, the elder, evidently settled in Lower Merion township, Montgomery county, as appears by a will dated 1748, devising personal property to heirs in that locality.

Michael Wills, the second, had three sons and three daugh

ters.

The names of the former were Jeremiah, Michael, and John. The first of the sisters married Michael Mather, the

*It is highly probable that they were English colonists there, as it is a well known act that the English government in Cromwell's time, and earlier, sequestered immense tracts of land in the island, and sold them to English settlers, who have held them ever since.

second Jacob Whiteman, and the last John Mather. Michael Wills, the elder, was an easy, kindly sort of man, but his wife was a woman of great thrift and energy. He died in 1794 at the age of eighty-six, and his widow survived him ten years. They are both buried at Radnor.

Michael Wills, Jr., born in 1755, grandson of Michael the emigrant, married Ann, daughter of Andrew and Elizabeth Keyser Wood, who were both of German descent. The acquaintance of Michael Wills and his wife resulted from the former breaking down on his way to market, and calling on Mr. Wood for assistance. Of these parents were born fourteen children, nine of whom grew to maturity, as follows: Elizabeth, Andrew, Jane, William and Mary (twins), Ann, Allen, Rebecca, and Sarah. Five others died in infancy. Michael Wills died January 15th, 1829, and his widow April 29th, 1832.

The maternal grandparents, Wood, above recorded, owned a valuable estate in Roxborough, Philadelphia. The house where they resided is still standing by the turnpike road, between the six and seven-mile stones.

Of this large family of children, their intermarriages and offspring may be briefly stated as follows: Elizabeth married Levi Evans, and had five sons and one daughter. Jane married John B. Hahn, and had eight children. Andrew, born June 18th, 1798, studied medicine, graduated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1825, and on the 12th of November, 1826, married Sarah Hannum, born May 2d, 1807, who was the daughter of James Hannum and Sarah Edge Reese, the two latter having married on the 13th of December, 1803. Andrew practiced medicine in Chester county, Pennsylvania, forty-six years, and died July 7th, 1871, at Lionville, aged seventy-three years. A further account of his family is given elsewhere in this sketch in connection with his son, Morgan R. Wills. We continue the further history of the family of Michael Wills, Jr. William Wills, of Plymouth, was intermarried with Elizabeth Marple, and had a family consisting of the following children: Allen married Hannah Supplee, Andrew married Eleanora Wilhaur, Clarence married Harriet Hogan, William married Sarah Roberts, Annie married William E. Cochran, and Lewis is unmar