Martha Jane Coston (December 12, 1826 – July 9, 1904) was an American inventor and businesswoman who invented the Coston
flare
A flare, also sometimes called a fusée, fusee, or bengala in some Latin-speaking countries, is a type of pyrotechnic that produces a bright light or intense heat without an explosion. Flares are used for distress signaling, illumination, ...
, a device for signaling at sea, and the owner of the Coston Manufacturing Company.
Early life
She was born Martha Hunt in Baltimore, Maryland, and moved to Philadelphia in the 1830s. At age 15 or 16, she eloped with Benjamin Franklin Coston, age 21, who had already acquired a reputation as a promising inventor. As a young man, he became director of the
U.S. Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of ...
’s scientific laboratory in Washington, D.C. At the
Washington Navy Yard
The Washington Navy Yard (WNY) is the former shipyard and ordnance plant of the United States Navy in Southeast Washington, D.C. It is the oldest shore establishment of the U.S. Navy.
The Yard currently serves as a ceremonial and administrativ ...
, he developed a signaling rocket and a
percussion primer for cannons. He also experimented with color-coded night signals to allow communication between ships, which at that time was limited to visual signals such as flags during the day and lanterns at night. After a dispute over payment for his work on the percussion primer, Coston resigned his commission with the Navy in 1847 and became president of the Boston Gas Company. His work with chemical fumes at both the Navy Yard and the Boston Gas Company caused his health to deteriorate, and he died in 1848 as a result of the chemical exposure. His work on the signal flares, while important, was limited to plans and chemical formulas.
Flare design and business
The years following Benjamin Coston's death were filled with more tragedy for Martha Coston; two of her children and her mother died in the next two years, leaving her in poor condition emotionally as well as in difficult financial straits. While searching through her husband's papers, she discovered the notes he had written on night signaling at the Navy Yard. Her husband's incomplete work needed substantial additional effort before it could be turned into a practical signaling system.
For nearly ten years, Martha Coston worked to develop a system of flare signaling based on her husband's earlier work. With a limited knowledge of chemistry and
pyrotechnics
Pyrotechnics is the science and craft of creating such things as fireworks, safety matches, oxygen candles, explosive bolts and other fasteners, parts of automotive airbags, as well as gas-pressure blasting in mining, quarrying, and demolition. ...
, she relied on the advice of hired chemists and fireworks experts, with mixed results. A breakthrough came in 1858, while she was witnessing the fireworks display in New York City celebrating the completion of the
transatlantic telegraph cable
Transatlantic telegraph cables were undersea cables running under the Atlantic Ocean for telegraph communications. Telegraphy is now an obsolete form of communication, and the cables have long since been decommissioned, but telephone and data a ...
; she realized that her system needed a bright blue flare, along with the red and white she had already developed. she established the Coston Manufacturing Company to manufacture the signal flares, and entered into a business relationship with a pyrotechnics developer to provide the necessary blue color.
On April 5, 1859, she was granted U.S. Patent number 23,536 for a pyrotechnic night signal and code system. (The patent was granted to her as administratrix for her deceased husband, who is named as inventor.) Using different combinations of colors, it enabled ships to signal to one another, and to signal to shore. Captain C.S. McCauley of the U.S. Navy recommended the use of her flares to Secretary of the Navy
Isaac Toucey
Isaac Toucey (November 15, 1792July 30, 1869) was an American politician who served as a U.S. senator, U.S. Secretary of the Navy, U.S. Attorney General and the 33rd Governor of Connecticut.
Biography
Born in Newtown, Connecticut, Toucey pur ...
in 1859. After extended testing, which demonstrated the effectiveness of the system, the U.S. Navy ordered an initial set of 300 flares, and later placed an order for $6000 worth of the flares.
International successes and the Civil War
Coston then obtained patents in England, France, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands, and sailed to England to begin marketing her invention there and in other parts of Europe. She remained in Europe until 1861, when she returned to the U.S. on the outbreak of the Civil War. She went directly to Washington, where she petitioned Congress to purchase the patent so that the flares could be used in the approaching conflict. After some delay, Congress passed an act on August 5, 1861, authorizing the U.S. Navy to purchase the patent for $20,000, though less than the $40,000 she had originally demanded.
Coston flares were used extensively by the U.S. Navy during the Civil War; they proved particularly effective in the discovery and capture of Confederate
blockade runners
A blockade runner is a merchant vessel used for evading a naval blockade of a port or strait. It is usually light and fast, using stealth and speed rather than confronting the blockaders in order to break the blockade. Blockade runners usuall ...
during the Union blockade of southern ports. Coston flares also played an important role in coordinating naval operations during the battle of
Fort Fisher
Fort Fisher was a Confederate fort during the American Civil War. It protected the vital trading routes of the port at Wilmington, North Carolina, from 1861 until its capture by the Union in 1865. The fort was located on one of Cape Fear River' ...
in
North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...
on January 13–15, 1865.
In 1871, Coston obtained a patent in her own name - Patent No. 115,935, Improvement in Pyrotechnic Night Signals. In addition to working on improvements to the signaling system, she continued to press claims for additional compensation from the U.S. government. Due to wartime inflation, the Coston Manufacturing Company supplied flares to the U.S. Navy at less than cost, and Coston estimated that the government owed her $120,000 in compensation. Although she pursued her claims for over ten years, she was offered only $15,000 additional reimbursement.
Use of the Coston flare in the United States Life-Saving Service
Eventually every station of the
United States Life-Saving Service
The United States Life-Saving ServiceDespite the lack of hyphen in its insignia, the agency itself is hyphenated in government documents including: and was a United States government agency that grew out of private and local humanitarian effort ...
was equipped with Coston flares, which were used to signal ships, warn of dangerous coastal conditions, and summon surfmen and other rescuers to a wreck scene. Many accounts of wrecks and rescues describe the use of the Coston flare, which was instrumental in saving thousands of lives. While Martha Coston died in 1904, her company, later called the Coston Signal Company and the Coston Supply Company, remained in business until at least 1985.
Legacy
![Martha Coston gravestone](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Martha_Coston_gravestone.jpg)
In 2006 Coston was inducted into the
National Inventors Hall of Fame
The National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) is an American not-for-profit organization, founded in 1973, which recognizes individual engineers and inventors who hold a U.S. patent of significant technology. Besides the Hall of Fame, it also opera ...
.
Coston and her husband are buried in Section D, Lot 62 in
Laurel Hill Cemetery
Laurel Hill Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery in the East Falls neighborhood of Philadelphia. Founded in 1836, it was the second major rural cemetery in the United States after Mount Auburn Cemetery in Boston, Massachusetts.
The cemetery is ...
in Philadelphia.
References
Further reading
* Coston, Martha J.
A Signal Success. The Life and Travels of Mrs. Martha J. Coston', Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, PA, 1886.
* Shanks, Ralph, and York, Wick, ''The United States Life-Saving Service'', at pages 123–125, Costaño Books, Petaluma, CA 1996
External links
(accessed January 19, 2008) Found in "Signal Success" is the Submarine page 11 bottom page. Wrighten by Martha J Coston 1886 and Lippincott Publishing co.
A Woman With Flare By C. KAY LARSON, New York Times, November 2, 2012
{{DEFAULTSORT:Coston, Martha
1826 births
1904 deaths
19th-century American businesswomen
19th-century American businesspeople
19th-century American inventors
American company founders
American women company founders
American patent holders
Burials at Laurel Hill Cemetery (Philadelphia)
Businesspeople from Baltimore
Businesspeople from Philadelphia
History of the United States Coast Guard
Women inventors