Edit to the above:
Stickney & Donovan arrived in Saint-Pierre first week in August.
Arrived New York the second week.

Professor
"Neither by education nor even curiosity." (The "Wizard of Oz" was a "Professor.")

So… who in Sam Hill was "Professor Colby?"

The Air Canada – Martinique identifies Colby as an Englishman. Another scholar I've corresponded with has him pegged as one "Bainbridge Colby," an American. I've got my money on:

Charles Edward Colby (12 May 1868, Chicago, IL. - 31 October 1913, San Francisco, CA)

The earliest record of aeronaut "Professor Charles Colby" is June 1888 with the Miller-Freeman Circus at Marlboro, Massachusetts. He broke his leg on his very first parachute descent. He still had the limp when he went to the Caribbean. Aeronaut Colby toured as a solo act with various North American railroad circuses for the next five years then took a thirteen year hiatus from aeronautics altogether (c.1892-1906.) His last known ascension was by conventional gas balloon at the 1910 Los Angeles International Air Meet (representing Aeronautical Squad, Company A, Signal Corp, National Guard of California.) He also acted as official timer for The Meet's heavier-than-air competitions.

From 1891-1895 Charles performed in pantaloon and humpty-dumpty shows on the early New England vaudeville circuit where he eventually teamed up with (and married) slack-rope walker and dancer Alberta Howard-Way, "Mlle. Alberta."

For the next eight years (c.1893-1905) Charles and Allie toured North America, England, New Zealand and Australia as "Colby and Way, The Warbling Ventriloquist and His Dancing Doll." A vaudeville "warbler" was a singer or whistler given to quavers, trills and similar ornaments. A "Dancing Doll" today would be somewhere between urban dance's "pop," "lock" and "the robot." Charles accompanied the whole act on piano.

The Professor was in Wellinton, NZ in May of 1902 when news of the eruption of Mt. Pele and the total destruction of Saint-Pierre, Martinique arrived by telegraph. Older, married and settled in vaudeville he was still a bit of the trickster (or pantaloon) but he had only kind words for the people of Martinique. It was almost twelve years to the day since his performance there.

Colby & Way were, if non-stop, world-wide tours are any guage, fairly good at entertaining turn-of-the-century audiences. The high point probably came with the 1903 Christmas Season and Oscar Hammerstein's top-of-the-line Victoria Theater in New York. They were on the bill with Billy B. Van and the premier of America's first motion picture, Thomas Edison's "The Great Train Robbery."

For a time, their agent was Zelman Moses who would later change his name to William Morris, but vaudeville agents didn't work for entertainers. They worked for the vaudeville circuits. Perhaps not coincidently, sometime during their international touring Charles recognized the benefits of joining the International Artisten Loge (I.A.L.) of Berlin. The I.A.L. was one of the first attempts to organize the entertainment industry and Charles would go on to chair at least one California meeting of America's White Rats vaudeville actors union. Colby was also a Scottish Rite Mason, an organization that filled many of the same functions as the I.A.L. for a for traveling entertainer in addition to providing venues in towns that weren't exactly open to the idea of vaudeville or circus. The Masons provided Charles Colby's funeral when his time came.

The original Colby & Way's last appearance was in September 1905. Alberta "Allie" Colby-Way died 30 December 1905, Boston, MA, age 45 years. Her obituary appeared in papers as far away as Wellington, NZ.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=57755522%3C

Charles continued on in vaudeville with a replacement partner ("Colby & May") but audiences weren't buying it. Within months he was back to a solo act, still with very mixed results, eventually appearing as "The Great Comet" bicycle daredevil at Chutes Park, Los Angeles.

It was at The Chutes that "Aeronaut Colby" reappeared as one of that amusement park's hot air balloonists and parachutists. More importantly, The Chutes doubled as an aerodrome for Roy Knabenshue, Thomas Scott Baldwin and several other pioneering American dirigible pilots and engineers. (T.S. Baldwin was also an ex-circus acrobat.)

Among them was Los Angeles impresario Richard "Dick" Ferris who was sponsoring one of, if not the first American National Guard aviation unit(s) through his ownership of the gas balloons "United States" and "American." Ferris drafted Charles Colby as his test and demonstration pilot for the Signal Corp and the upcoming 1910 Los Angeles Air Meet he (Ferris) was organizing, another American first. "Aeronautical Squad, Company A" held several training exercises in and around the LA Basin before disbanding in favor of fixed-wing aircraft. How much all of that had to do with Ferris' involvement in Baja's Magonista Revolt is up for grabs. He was charged but it never went to trial.

The Chutes park closed (and soon reopened as LA's first black-owned and operated amusement park.) Charles Colby went back to vaudeville yet again but with somewhat better results this time. He married second wife Jane Bellis (of Seattle, WA) January 1913 in Oakland, CA. She was widowed less than a year later on 31 October 1913 in San Francisco, CA. Professor Charles Edward Colby was laid to rest at Lawn Cemetery, Colma, CA.