|
Coming from
high up in the sky, a startling sound caught the attention of people living
in parts of Cecil county one humid July morning in 1911. Along the railroad line from Elkton to
Perryville, as the droning noise drew near, people tumbled out into the
streets, and all eyes looked skyward, searching for the source of the alien
racket. An aircraft passing over caused the attention-getting noise, which,
having drawn crowds outdoors, allowed many here to get their first fleeting
glance at an airship.
The journey for
this biplane started in Atlantic City, N.J., the aviators making a flight to
Washington, D.C. En-route, the "mechanical bird" swooped to earth
for fuel at the Hospital for the Insane at Farnhurst, Del. When it struck out
again, after a few preliminary whirrs of the propellers, it soared into the
air and followed the railroad tracks into Maryland.
At Newark, the morning train chugged out of the station as the aviators
approached so they raced it southward. When the locomotive screeched to a
stop at Elkton, the flying-machine had already breezed past the county seat,
newspapers observed. Of course, the train had stopped at Iron Hill station on
its way across the Mason Dixon Line.
When the "bird-men" operating the "first flying machine"
seen in North East came into sight, the town newspaper, the Cecil Star, noted
the excitement:
"Everyone gazed in 'open-eyed and open-mouthed wonder at the sight of
the strange thing that came swiftly, steadily and gracefully ...'toward
them."
The passage, naturally, was not unexpected, for by now telegraph and
telephone wires hummed with news of the unusual sight. As it faded into the
horizon, the paper observed that "it was a grand and novel slight"
to see the "great, 40-foot, manmade bird, carrying two passengers, going
as swiftly and as steadily as an eagle in its flight across town."
When it buzzed over Principio and Perryville, most residents turned out to
see the "sky travelers." They lost sight of the "mechanical
bird" as it winged its bird-like way into the distant Harford County
sky. Many people had seen what most had only heard about -- an airplane. And
it was a day they would long remember.
At the edge of Baltimore, the aviators brought their Wright-Burgess machine
down to earth because intense heat and humidity made it impossible to rise to
a safe height to clear the city, the Cecil Whig reported. The two
"bird-men," Charles K. Hamilton of New York, and Harry N. Atwood of
Boston, said that at no time during the flight did they reach a height of
more than 250 feet. There were times they had to stray from the railroad track
in order to avoid telegraph poles, and the handicap of the heat caused
"dangerous holes in the air," the aviators told bystanders.
Such was Cecil's first newspaper-observed contact with an airplane. After
that, aircraft in increasing numbers flew over the county. But still, the
sound of a flying-machine passing over Elkton during World War I caused
people to rush outside to scan the sky, Dorothy Robinson recalled in an
interview in 1993.
One day in May 1918, many countians constantly searched the horizon. They
were looking for two planes, which had made simultaneous takeoffs from
Washington, D.C. and Long Island. It was the inauguration of the first
scheduled airmail service between Washington and New York; their daily route
brought these letter carriers across the top of the Chesapeake.
Rising Sun got a close-up view of a flying machine in November 1918, when a
craft landed to await fuel. The machine, after circling a few times, landed
on the farm of Herbert Kirk, where it glided down gracefully without mishap,
according to the Midland Journal. The pilot telephoned Aberdeen Proving
Ground for help.
Meanwhile, news of the landing spread, and sightseers in carriages,
automobiles and bicycles flocked to the field, the crowd soon growing to
between 400 and 500 people. Bystanders peppered the pilot with all kinds of
questions and the newspaper advised he had "courteous replies for every
one."
On arrival of a motorcycle with fuel, he climbed into the machine. As it
rolled down the field, the craft suddenly left the ground, the plane rising
higher and higher, while spectators cried goodbye.
That same year, Elktonians were startled when many of them witnessed two
airplanes collide over town, the Cecil County News reported. One machine,
operated by Lt. James Tierney, had its right wing broken, but it made a safe
landing in Elkton Heights. The pilot of the other craft, Lt. John Hoare,
suffered a broken leg when he crashed on the Elk Landing farm.
A few years later, in 1921, 25-year-old Lt. Harry J. Spaulding met with a
horrible death when his aircraft crashed on a Saturday afternoon near Iron
Hill. On a trip to Philadelphia, he encountered heavy fog, and people
reported that as he passed over Elkton, he appeared to be in danger of
striking trees or buildings. Apparently trying to find a place to land, he
came down on the McClintock farm, but because of the mist, he struck a
railroad embankment, exploding on impact. Frank Sherrard and John Carroll,
who lived nearby, hurried to the scene, but were unable to get to the
aviator.
The county celebrated National Air Mail Week in May 1938 by having an airmail
plane swoop down on a field at Elk Landing, on a farm being operated by
Joseph Bryson. After retrieving the pouch of mail, a crowd watched the
aircraft roll down the field, quickly gaining speed and ascending into the
air.
Growing interest in flight demanded a local landing facility, observed the
Whig in a 1931 editorial. In five to 10 years, this method of travel would
become common, the editor continued, so before it became a "part of our
daily program" thought should be given to a field.
Waldo Reid Lovett established one on 80 acres just outside Elkton, the Whig
wrote in 1949. Set up for student instruction, plane rental, sightseeing
trips and storage for planes, Lovett Airport served aviation interests for
decades.
As time went on, many here witnessed two ghastly chapters in the history of
man's conquest of the air. On a beautiful Memorial Day in 1947, as a golden,
late-afternoon sunlight bathed the Susquehanna River, a Florida-bound DC-4
suddenly plunged into dense woods near Bainbridge, carrying 53 people to
death.
On a cold, rainy night in 1963, as flashes of lightning punctuated the
December darkness, five airliners waiting for orders to land in Philadelphia
circled in a holding pattern over the area. Suddenly, lightning struck one of
the craft, Pan Am Flight 214 circling above Elkton. It plunged toward earth
in flames, carrying 81 people to death in a muddy field.
Located on a heavily traveled air traffic corridor, the area has had many
experiences with airplanes since that day so long ago when people in North
East looked on excitedly as the first "flying-machine" passed over
the town.
In the jet age, a time when Cecil's sky is filled with planes day and night,
the roar of an aircraft engine or the sight of a craft floating up in the air
no longer draws any special attention.
Michael L. Dixon, M.S., is historian for The Historical Society of Cecil
County.
Dates in
local aviation history
July 11, 1911
-- First recorded flight of a plane over North East
May 15, 1918
-- Scheduled airmail flight flew over for first time
Oct. 30, 1918
-- Rising Sun got a close up look at a craft
Nov. 22, 1918
-- First plane crash occurred in Elkton
Jan. 22, 1921
-- First fatal airplane crash in county
May 19, 1938
-- Airmail plane lands on Bryson Farm at Elk Landing
May 30, 1947
-- An airliner crashed near Port Deposit, killing 53 people
Dec. 8, 1963
-- A passenger jet crashed near Elkton, killing 81 people
|
