Rocket PoweR, InteRstellaR tRavel and eteRnal lIfe

advanced algebra, plane and solid geometry, trigonometry,
logarithms and calculus.” After discovering imprecision
in a slide rule, “they perfected a higher form of
mathematics which they found to be foolproof and
which they used in all subsequent engineering design
and building.” 7 Marvin also noted, “This form of mathematics
has no known name, but all future work carrying
the Hungerford name was based on it.” 8 Daniel
Hungerford in a handbill promoting his election to the
state assembly in 1948 said he had “studied mechanical
engineering, electricity, and social science by correspondence.”
9
In January 1903, William M. Hungerford was “killed
instantly by falling lean [-] to roof—load of snow” 10
leading to the eventual Hungerford family’s move back
to Elmira. Years later Daniel Hungerford after learning
of a roof collapse on a shelter in a city park wrote to a
newspaper editor, probably of the Elmira Star-Gazette,
Perhaps the writer is over-sensitive to this sort of
thing. In the winter of 1903 he and four others were
called to look at a lean-to cowshed roof that had
split one of its supporting posts under a moderate
load of snow. The group walked under the roof to
get a view of the split post. Father, a brother and
cousin were under the roof when the farmer
shouted a warning. The roof fell and father was
killed outright and brothers [sic] and cousin seriously
injured. 11
Brothers Daniel and Floyd first appear in the Elmira
city directories in 1907 residing with their widowed
mother Mary and their sister. 12 Daniel’s profession was
listed as machinist and Floyd as a “shoe operator”; by
1909 both Hungerfords were listed as machinists with
Daniel employed by John T. Young on Railroad Avenue
in Elmira. Although the 1910 federal census identified
Floyd as a laborer in the masonry trade, the directory
again listed both brothers as machinists. A surviving
photograph shows the two in working clothes, posing
with two other men, one likely John Young himself, in
front of the Young machine shop. Daniel Hungerford in
the Who’s Who in American Aeronautics reported, in the
mid-1920s, that he had worked in the “General Machine
Repair Shop of John T. Young” until 1911 when he
became “inventor, designer and foreman, American
Thermostat Co., Newark, N.J., to 1914”. 13
The American Thermostat Company with directory
listings from 1909 through 1914 actually was located in
Elmira. In the years Hungerford was employed by
American Thermostat, the offices were first on East
Water Street, then on East Church Street, and finally in
the Robinson Building, a multi-story structure largely
housing lawyers, insurance agents, and similar offices.
In 1909, Burchard Johnson, previously associated
with the Queen City Electric Company, was American
Thermostat president and proprietor. For the 1910 and
1911 directory years, Harry M. Swartz, previously
Figure 2. Posing in front of Young’s Machine Shop located on Railroad Avenue in Elmira ca. 1910. Left to right, are likely, J. Philip
Young, (John Young’s son), Floyd Hungerford, John Young (proprietor), and Daniel Hungerford.
2 Daniel and Floyd Hungerford: Rocket Power, Interstellar Travel and Eternal Life, by Geofrey N. Stein