She Illuminated the Seas

Martha Jane Hunt was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on December 12, 1826. She grew up with little or no formal education, but was very bright and curious. When she was sixteen, Martha moved to Philadelphia, where she met and eloped with Benjamin Franklin Coston, twenty-one. 

Benjamin had already gained status and a reputation as a promising inventor. He was director of the U.S. Navy’s scientific laboratory in Washington D.C. and developed a rocket that signaled and a percussion primer for cannons. He also experimented with color coded night signals to allow ships to communicate. Benjamin resigned his commission with the navy in 1847 over a pay dispute and became president of the Boston Gas Company. He was just beginning to work on signal flares. Sadly, his exposure to dangerous chemicals and fumes both at the Navy Yard and then at the Gas Company caused his health to deteriorate rapidly, and he died in 1848. 

Now, at the tender age of twenty-one, with four children, Martha found herself penniless and the sole provider for her family. She struggled. Further compounding her grief, Martha’s mother and two of her children died. She was bereft, emotionally and financially drained. 

One rainy day, Martha was going through her late husband’s papers when she stumbled upon one of his unfinished projects: “At last I came upon a large envelope containing papers and a skillfully drawn plan of signals to be used at sea, at night, for the same purposes of communication that flags are used by day.” He had been working on the night signaling invention while at the Navy Yard.

One notebook contained rough sketches, notes, and chemical formulas for a potential signaling system that could be of use to the Navy, as currently all they had were manual signaling systems that included waiving white flags. She knew she would need to devote tremendous effort to market this invention, but she also knew it was feasible. Her goal was to use his notes to create a durable, long lasting pyrotechnic flare that would be an effective signaling system for both ship to ship and ship to land communication. 

It took nearly ten years of diligence to bring the project to fulfillment. Martha had a limited knowledge of chemistry and even more limited knowledge of pyrotechnics, but with her husband’s notes and a chemist and fireworks expert, they developed a product that had mixed results. Finally, in 1858, while she was observing a fireworks display in New York City that was celebrating the completion of the transatlantic telegraphic cable, she had a breakthrough! A realization dawned that her system needed a bright blue flare, along with the red and white flare that they had already developed. Martha established the Coston Manufacturing Company and entered a business collaboration with a pyrotechnics developer who provided the blue color. 

“It would consume too much space, and weary my readers, for me to go into all the particulars of my efforts to perfect my husband’s idea. The men I employed and dismissed, the experiments I made myself, the frauds that were practiced upon me, almost disheartened me; but … I treasured up each little step that was made in the right direction, the hints of naval officers, and the opinions of the different boards that gave the signals a trial. I had finally succeeded in getting a pure white and a vivid red light.”

On April 5th, 1859, the U.S. Patent Office granted Martha patent number 223,536. Patent, number 223,536 for the night signal pyrotechnic code system. (The patent was granted to her as administratrix for her deceased husband, who is named as inventor). Using different combinations of colors, this device allowed ships to signal each other and signal to shore. Captain C.S. McCauley of the Navy recommended the use of her flares to the Secretary of the Navy, Isaac Toucey that same year.

Researchers published a report in February after a month-long testing period. In summary, the report contained three main points: 

1. Coston signals are better than any other known to them 

2. The Board strongly recommends them for the use of the navy; and 

3. Signals being the means whereby orders are given, or wants made known at sea, a good code of them plainly intelligible to the persons addressed is absolutely necessary to the efficient conduct of a fleet.

The Navy tested the flares and found them effective. The Navy ordered 300 flares. They proved their worth and shortly afterwards; the Navy placed an order for $6,000 worth of the flares. 

Martha then obtained patents in England, France, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands. After traveling in Europe, she returned to the states at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. Martha traveled to Washington, where she petitioned Congress to purchase the patent in order for them to use the flares in the approaching conflict. After a significant bureaucratic delay, Congress passed an act in August of that year, authorizing the Navy to purchase the patent for $20,000, half of her asking price.   

The extensive use of Coston flares during the Civil War proved highly effective in discovering and capturing Confederate blockade runners following the Union’s closure of Southern ports. The flares also played a critical role in the coordination of naval operations during the two-day battle at Fort Fisher in North Carolina in January 1865.

In 1871, Martha Coston obtained a patent in her own name, number 115,935, Improvement in Pyrotechnic Night Signals.Martha continued to improve upon her invention, developing a twist-ignition version patented that same year. The flares were sold to navies around the world, commercial merchant vessels, and private yachting clubs, and have saved a countless number of lives. During the war, the Coston Manufacturing Company supplied flares to the U.S. Navy at less than cost. With the end of the war, Martha pursued her claim for over ten years that the government owed her $120,000. The government finally offered her a mere $15,000 settlement.

Martha said that she always had to be “ready to fight like a lioness” against chauvinism. Being a woman, she was consistently dismissed or under-compensated. Yet she persevered and became living proof that women could invent in any realm if they did not give up. The Coston flare saved thousands of lives, warning of dangerous coastal conditions and summoning rescuers to wrecks. 

In 2006, Martha Jane Hunt Coston was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.