Belfort Instrument History

1. co
Long an East
Baltimore landmark,
this is the Belfort
Obserr,atory as it
looked in 1928 on the
corner of Baltimore St.
and Central Ave.

2. Whilemost Baltimoreans talked
about the weather, scientific instru-
ment manufacturer Julien Pierre
Friez did something about it.
As founder of the Belfort Ob-
servatory, which for many years
housec the production of precision
meteorological paraphernalia, he
qualifies as being the first man in
the United States to set up his own
weather observatory.
Long an East Baltimore land-
mark, the centuries-old house at
Baltimore Street and Central Ave-
nue doubled as Mr. Friez's home
and laboratory, with the production
division standing alongside.
The observatory was a curious
sight in its days with numerous
wind indicators, w-ires,rain gauges
and other instruments attached to
its roof and several other buildings
on the block.
When the young instrument pio-
neer came to Baltimore in 1876,he
established his business at various
locations, finally settling on Ger-
man Street (now Redwood). He
was burned out in the Great Bal-
rimore Fire, and another relocation
took Mr. Friez to the home he
bought in East Baltimore in 1896.
The ornately gabled house on
Baltimore Street was then on the
eastern edge of the city. Built in
1757 of wood and brick brought
over from England as ship ballast,
it stood on a terraced piece of prop-
- erty originally belonging to the
Carroll family. The residence was
12 EXTRA / Febru",!y 27, 1972
said to be the second oldest house
still standing in the city.
No nails were used in the orig-
inal construction of the building-
WOodenpegs joined the 12 by 16-'
inch solid walnut rafters. A tunnel
led from its cellar to what used
to be a canal down Central Ave-
nue. Stories circulated that the
secret passage was used during the
CivilWar as a way of entering the
house unnoticed.
Most of Belfort's 22 rooms had
fireplaces which were found to con-
tain secret hiding compartments
behind removable bricks. When the
Friez family opened these lairs,
they discovered deeds which the
Carrolls drew up allowing farmers
to work their extensive land hold-
ings. Also, many old coins turned
up tucked away in these places,
Some 5,000 rose bushes and
other pieces of shrubbery sur-
rounded the house, making it a
garden spot in addition to its land-
mark status.
The flowers were in bloom from
the earliest days of spring until
the winter frost. The employes of
the company were given large
bunches of roses for their own
homes by Mr. Friez.
Inquiries were often directed to
the firm about how it managed to
keep its gardens in such vibrant
color,
Years later an employe of the
company offered a possible expla-
nation of the green thumb success.
It s-rems that the surrounding
neighborhood was overpopulated
with inquisitive cats. While the fe-
lines were on their nightly prowls,
they tended to climb around the
delicate outdoor weather instru-
ments 'and caused considerable
damage and disruption to record-
ing of valuable data.
The animals were captured
nightly in traps baited with cat-
nip and then done away with. A
new rose bush would then be
-bought, a grave dug, a cat coffin
lowered, and the bush planted on
top. That was the garden's secret.
Although the Belfort house was
both beautiful and interesting, the
weather instruments the complex,
produced assured it a permanent
position in the scientific history of
the country.
The weather observatory was
established a full 15 years before
Congress organized the federal
Weather Bureau.
, Mr. Friez gave his business the
name of Belfort, a French military
victory near his native Montbeil-
lard, an Alsatian village. After the
war was fought, a lion was carved
in the nearby mountainside to
commemorate the success.
He also copied the Belfort lion
as his trademark and kept an im-
posing statue of the Leo atop the
arched entrance to Belfort,
The founder's mechanical knowl-
edge put him in the enviable posi-
tion of being a scientist's scientist
and an inventor's inventor.
Friez helped Ottmar Mergen-
'-"""'"
thaler in the building of his first
Linotype machine that so revolu-
tionized printing. He also worked
with Johns HopkinsProfessor Hen-
ry A. Rowland in the perfecting of
his diffraction grating machine
that cut 30,000lines per inch in a
piece of glass.
Interest in weather instruments
did not reach a great height, how-
ever, until the widespread traver
by airplane made accurate weather
predictions a necessity. For many
years the Friez firm supplied up-
wards of 90per cent of the weather
predicting devices used by the
government.
During the 1920s,when the gi-
gantic dirigible Graf Zeppelin first
crossed the Atlantic, an urgent call
went out to Belfort from Lake-
hurst, the craft's landing spot in
New Jersey.
A massive wind recording in-
strument was needed to measure
wind velocity at ground level, and
the only such piece of equipment
wason the top of the Belfort tower.
It was quickly hauled down and
sent off to save the day at Lake-
hurst.
Weather balloons, equipped with
radios to send back reports of
stratospheric conditions,were man-
ufactured at the plant and regular-
ly released across the country.
Eventually, the balloons fell
down to earth and carried identifi-
cation cards telling the finder a re-
ward wouldbe issued fot their safe
return.

3. Shortly after Orson Welles'
famed 1938 "War of the Worlds"
broadcast, the observatory re-
ceived back a balloon transmitter
full of bullet holes. The finder re-
ported seeing it tangled up in a
tree, decided it was a Martian
bomb, and had state police blast
it down with rifles.
Blonde-haired Baltimoreans pa-
triotically responded to a most un-
usual request Friez made during
World War II years. Human nat-
urally blonde hair, at least 12
inches in length, and never elec-
trically curled or tinted, was needed
as the humidity sensitive element
in hydrographs. These humidity re-
corders were made by the thou-
sands for use by airports during
the war.
The Red Cross even helped get
in the search for the much-needed
locks, and the demand for blondes
was reached, at least according to
Friez standards.
Because the mushrooming air-
craft industry demanded more and
more high quality technical instru-
ments, the original Central Avenue
location of Friez became too s1nall
to house operations.
A new site was selected near
Towson at Taylor Avenue and
Joppa Road, and a much expanded
Bendix-Friez plant moved in 1942,
leaving its picturesque East Balti-
more location to decay and ob-
scurity behind a series of billboard
advertisements.