Professor C.F. Ritchel of Bridgeport, dirigible seen here on the
cover of Harper's Weekly (July 13, 1878)

In Bridgeport, inventor Charles F. Ritchel designed and had built in 1878 a crude hand-powered dirigible. A rubberized cylindrical gas bag made at the Goodyear Rubber Company in Naugatuck supported a brass frame work made at Folansbee Machine Shop in Bridgeport on which the aeronaut sat.

The aeronaut turned by hand a drive gear that drove a small propeller which could also be moved directionally to pull the dirigible to the desired course.

The craft was able to ascend 200 feet. After much flying of the small dirigible inside one of the Centennial Exposition buildings at Philadelphia, Ritchel brought it to Hartford where on June 12, 1878 Ritchel’s fly-weight aeronaut, Mark Quinlan, took off from the baseball field behind Colt’s Armory. A sizable crowd of spectators watched Quinlan sail over the armory, turn over the Connecticut River, return and land at the starting point to shake Ritchel’s hand.

This was the first flight of a man-carrying dirigible in America. The next day Quinlan attempted a repeat flight, but the wind was too strong and he landed at Newington. Flights were later made at Boston and elsewhere. Ritchel’s fertile imagination envisioned a trans-continental airline using a large dirigible cranked by eleven men.

Eventually, five of the early dirigibles were built and sold. Flights were made in Massachusetts and elsewhere, harkening the beginning of Connecticut's important role in national aviation.

Ritchel is also credited by some with inventing roller skates. His Bridgeport Post obituary reports that he had over 150 inventions. Below is a picture of a coin bank that he patented. Ritchel died broke in 1911.

The Monkey Bank was designed by C.F. Ritchel of Bridgeport, Conn., and patented by him November 7, 1882 under Design Patent No. 13,400.

Ives Manufacturing founded in 1868 on Water Street in Bridgeport, which produced the first mechanical trains to run on tracks, very possibly produced the Monkey Bank.

The operation of the bank is quite simple. A coin is placed on the flat slide type device held in the hands of the monkey and the lever in back is then pressed. This causes the arms to rise and in turn lifts the so-called tray, and the coin slides into a slot in the monkey’s stomach.