Organ of the Aerial Steam Navigation Company". One of the lead columns of the News Letter was named "Town Crier", written by Major Ambrose Bierce. 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. Avitor Hermes Jr. was a prototype unmanned aircraft built largely by candlelight in the basement of the publishing building Montgomery Block. The craft flew a few feet off the ground at Shell Mound Park racetrack, Millbrae during a short demonstration on 2 July 1869, Following, Avitor was moved to the San Francisco Mechanics' Institute Pavilion, the largest hall in the city and displayed with scheduled flights four times per day. Many thousands visited for an admission fee before the aircraft caught fire after its first season. 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. See also John C. Frémont Emperor Norton William Henry Rhodes Zachariah Montgomery William Chapman Ralston Sources Drury, William, Norton I,