Rocket PoweR, InteRstellaR tRavel and eteRnal lIfe

In 1929, his business failed, and packing all the
early Curtiss airplane parts in newspapers, he
stored them and larger items in two barns with the
idea that he would some day establish a museum
to early aviation. His idea never materialized, and
although he has been approached by a number of
interested individuals throughout the country who
wished to purchase his prized stock, he would not
part with them until Mr. [Otto P.] Kohl contacted
him and explained plans for the museum here
[Hammondsport] in the “Cradle of naval Aviation”
in honor of the native son who invented many of
the items stored. 47
In 1963, Paul D. Wilson wrote to Otto P. Kohl at the
Glenn H. Curtiss Museum about a Clerget aircraft
engine in the museum collections.
If you located the remains of this engine in the
Elmira area it may well be a Clerget that was used
in an Avro. Dan Hungerford was mixed up in this
deal in some manner but for the life of me I cannot
recall the details. It seems to me that he owned this
Avro but it is possible that he called me for another
party. At any rate I went over to Elmira and finished
rigging the ship. I then flew it a number of
times. There was a novice pilot there who was to
take over the flying and I recall that his ship was
operated for quite some time. 48
Eva Taylor noted that the “Elmira Telegram for
Sept.11, 1927, [reported] Daniel Hungerford was said to
be a recognized authority on the history of early aviation
in this area. At the time of the dedication of the
Chemung airport he arranged an historic window display
at the Iszard [department] store.” 49 In 1962, aviation
history researchers in St. Joseph, Michigan,
Sherwin Murphy and Richard Derrick, exchanged letters
with Daniel Hungerford about alleged 1898 powered-flight
experiments undertaken by Augustus
Herring at St. Joseph. Herring’s collaborator and financial
backer was Matthias H. Arnot, (1833-1901), of
Elmira. Since I had been an intern at the Henry Ford
Museum, which had received correspondence from
Murphy and Derrick, I visited Hungerford in Elmira to
ask if he had any knowledge of Arnot’s involvement
with Herring, but Hungerford, who already had
received a letter from Murphy and Derrick, told me he
had no substantive information about the Herring
experiments. 50 Daniel did, on another occasion, write to
Otto Kohl, curator of the Glenn H. Curtiss Museum,
that he and his brother Floyd “knew Mat. Arnot personally.”
In that letter, Hungerford described a glider
built in 1913 or 1914 by Charles S. Teasdale according to
drawings made by Arnot before the latter’s death. 51
In 1960 Daniel Hungerford wrote to the New York
Journal American to remind the newspaper of the
upcoming (1961) fiftieth anniversary of the transcontinental
air race sponsored by the paper. While the
$50,000 prize had not been awarded in 1911,
Hungerford said he had “appointed himself a committee
of one . . . to celebrate that great man [Calbraith P.
Rodgers who came closest to claiming the prize] and
event in the old fashioned American manner – and I’ll
need help and money –. What can and will you do?” 52
In 1961 Daniel Hungerford writing an end to
Hungerford brothers’ flight endeavors said they had
“maintained a field and carried on until 1927 – then we
built and licensed and operated the first jet or rocket
car . . . ” 53
ENDNOTES
22 Taylor, Eva C., “Hungerford’s Rockets”, The Chemung
Historical Journal, vol. 20 no. 2, December 1974, p. 2447.
23 Elmira Star Gazette (Elmira Advertiser?), dated December 28,
1965.
24 Daniel D. Hungerford to Keith Marvin, May 22, 1964.
25 Cliff R. Towner to Geoffrey N. Stein, November 22, 1994.
26 Jon Elan Steen to Geoffrey Stein, August 24, 1992. Elan Steen
added, “I am sure they [William and his siblings, the children
of Daniel and Floyd’s brother William] could tell you more
than my mother and I, but they are an odd family, and stubborn
besides. I know the family was quite embarrassed about
all the newspaper stories about evicting uncle Dan.”
27 Louis S. Casey, Curtiss[,] The Hammondsport Era 1907-1915
(New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1981).
28 A piece of what may have been a hand-written date appears
at the top of the photocopy of the clip seen by the author, “…-
16 – 14”. Daniel Hungerford noted that his first flight with
the Bleriot was August 13, 1913.
29 Daniel D. Hungerford to William E. Dion, July 25, 1961.
30 Daniel D. Hungerford to William E. Dion, August 31, 1961.
31 Undated letter, but a reply from Merrill Stickler, Curtiss curator,
is dated August 6, 1975. A postscript again refers to the
Hungerfords: “Perhaps the plane they built was replaced
with the $2000.00 one.” The last may refer to the Bleriot.
32 Keith Marvin, “The Wizards of West Second Street”,
Automobile Quarterly, Fall 1965, p. 195.
33 Joe Kosmicki to Geoffrey Stein, April 13, 1994. The Star
Gazette, December 28, 1965, said the Hungerfords paid $200
for the Bleriot and had it shipped to Elmira via the
Pennsylvania Railroad. Directories from the 1910s into the
1940s listed Stanley Kosmicki as a machinist employed variously
by the American Sales Book, Ward-LaFrance, and
Eclipse Machine operations.
34 The photographs with Hungerford’s inscriptions are in the
Glenn H. Curtiss Museum files.
12 Daniel and Floyd Hungerford: Rocket Power, Interstellar Travel and Eternal Life, by Geofrey N. Stein