On 24 October 1962 Francis Brenton boarded a bus in New York as the first part of a journey to Central America … travelling later on to South America. He kept a diary and, after some years, as the writing in the diary was fading, he made a recorded version. In total there were 17 tape reels spanning two years of travel. Unfortunately, over half the reels are missing, but some have been recovered and digitalised. Listen to them here:
Hello, my name is Trenton Zylstra, I’m a graduate student at East Carolina University who has because of my research into the construction of Senegambian watercraft had the chance to work with one of the boats used by Francis Brenton. The boat was used during his crossing of the Atlantic from Senegal to the US, … Continue reading Researcher takes a close look at one of Francis’ old boats at the Chicago Field museum
In 1967 Francis attempted to be the first to cross the Atlantic in a balloon. Finally, some cine film clips related to this have been put on video. Although the film is damaged we can see Francis’ first practice attempts to fly the balloon. Unfortunately, the material for the balloon was poorly made and the … Continue reading Francis’ attempts to cross atlantic in a balloon
Thanks to Dan Sunita for getting in touch and sending this picture of Francis (taken by Dan’s dad) in Chicago in October, 1968. Also, some recordings by Francis are posted below:
My efforts to play and digitalise Francis Brenton’s reel to reel recordings had fallen flat as one of the tapes broke. So I have enlisted the help of a professional tape to digital specialist from a town in Sweden near where I live. Let’s see how this goes. Here is a picture of Hans at … Continue reading Professional tape digitaliser found:)
Francis Brenton 