DR. WILLIAM W. CHRISTMAS 1865-1960

WILLIAM CHRISTMAS'S BIPLANE Collection of James Spainhour Courtesy of North Carolina State Archives

Harvard-Boston's Great Aero Meet - Boston, Mass. Aug 19. Daily Journal and Tribune, Knoxville, Tennessee: August 19, 1910, Via email from Bob Davis - 9-2-03      "No aviation meet held in this country and probably none yet held in the world has had such a representative list of aviators as is assured in the Harvard-Boston aero meet, September 3 to September 13, according to the list of entrants to date announced tonight. The entry list is truly international and includes seventeen individual aviators and eleven types of air navigating machines. There is certain to be keen competition for the $40,000 hung up as prizes in a dozen events. The entrants follow:

Walter Brookins Arthur Johnson Glenn H. Curtiss Charles F. Willard M. Didier Masson A.V. Roe, J. Graham White William M. Hilliard J. M. All_as Ernest P. Lincoln, Clifford D. Harmon Captain Thomas Baldwin Jacques Delesseps Dr. W. P. Christmas John G. Stratton Horace F. Kearner Greely S. Curtis

Wright biplanes Wright biplanes Curtiss biplanes Curtiss biplanes Vendome aeroplane Roe Triplane Farman biplane & Bleriot monoplane; Herring-Burgess biplane Harvard biplane;         Christmas biplane Burgess-Curtiss aeroplane Pfitzer monoplane Bleriot monoplane

ONLINE RESOURCES      If you search for "William Christmas +aviation" using the Google search engine, (9-20-03), you will find about 29 links. Since I first built this page more than two years ago, several have been added which are outstanding sources of information.

WILLIAM CHRISTMAS      You will find this entry on the North Carolina Centennial of Flight website is absolutely priceless. It offers a very comprehensive biography of him and a photograph of his monoplane from the North Carolina State Archives, a copy of which is seen at the top of this page. You can access the site by clicking on the title above.      If time is available, you will be rewarded by visiting the homepage and sampling the other sections such as Timeline, Pioneers, Accounts, Centennial and resources. Among the pioneers you will find biographies of other aviators, some familiar, some unfamiliar, all of them interesting. Many of their stories are illustrated with priceless photographs from the North Carolina State Archive. To access the homepage, just click on the name of the website, North Carolina Centennial of Flight.

 

WILLIAM CHRISTMAS ON THE AEROFILES WEBSITE      This entry on K O Eckland's Aerofiles website, (recently redesigned - 9-20-03), offers a brief resumé of his company and detailed descriptions, some with photographs, of his six aeroplanes. You can access his entry by clicking on the title above.      You may want to use the "Find" function on "Christmas" to locate the entry on the page.

 

Dr. William Whitney Christmas, credited with designing the first plane equipped with ailerons, passed away at Bellevue Hospital, New York of pneumonia, April 14, 1960. He lived at 600 West 144th Street, New York.      Dr. Christmas was educated at St. John's Military Academy, University of Virginia and George Washington University, and held Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts, and Doctor of Medicine degrees. He gave up the practice of medicine early in the century to devote his time to aviation. He made several flights in March, 1908 in a plane of his own design. In 1912 he set an endurance and a ceiling record, and in 1918 he designed a plane with flexible wings. He held patent on some 300 inventions and was one of the earliest airplane pilots. He was 94 years of age at death. Funeral services were held at Croom, Maryland where he was buried. From The Early Birds of Aviation CHIRP, June, 1960 Number 63

 

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