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Volume 053-4 - October 1999 (6 pages)
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Page: of 6
east of Grass Valley we began to see them skulking through
the timber, from tree to tree. I don’t know how many were
killed, but all seemed satisfied that the murder of the
som, Walkers was amply avenged.
Footnote: Forty-eight years after the fact, Irwin has given a
mangled version of the well-documented story of the Holt
(not Walker) brothers, one of whom was killed and the
other wounded on May 6, 1850, during an attack on their
sawmill south of Grass Valley. It appear the Indians were
retaliating after ten miners attacked a nisenan village on the
previous day and killed two of its inhabitants. Perhaps
Irwin was having a “senior moment” when he recalled a
surname that begins with the letter W, for Walsh and
Wheeler owned a nearby sawmill to which the badly injured George Holt fled after the attack.
Further Notes on
Lyman Gilmore Jr.
by Bonnie Flindt Palmer
HERE ARE TWO ITEMS THAT WILL BE DISCUSSED
here. The first is the clumsy reporting of the flights
conducted by Lyman Gilmore Jr. from Cape Horn in 1909
which led to some confusion as to whether the aircraft was
o™ manned or unmanned.
On August 20, 1909, the Sacramento Bee reported the
following: “SUCCESSFUL AIRSHIP FLIGHT IS MADE FROM
MOUNTAIN AT COLFAX,” and goes on to say:
Sunday afternoon after inviting a number of his
friends out to Cape Horn, Gilmore started his aeroplane
from the top of the Horn and made a flight of over 3000
feet at an average height of 250 feet, landing within a
few feet of his starting place.
There was no mention of a “model.” On August 21, 1909
the Grass Valley Morning Union printed the headline,
“COLFAX MAN FLIES IN A NEW MACHINE; Flew From Cape
Horn and Was Able to Return in Good Shape.” The body of
the article read:
Down at Colfax they boast of a full-fledged aviator, who
has made a flight—without breaking his neck—and now
the people of the junction town are looking forward to
greater things.
On August 21, 1909 the Sacramento Bee reported, “MODEL
AIRSHIP IS KEPT SECRET.” In reporting the Cape Horn
flight, this article goes on to say:
The model is operated by springs and gear wheels and is
about three feet across of light wood, metal and oiled
silk.
And finally, on August 22, 1909, the Morning Union reNCHS Bulletin October 1999
ports, “COLFAX INVENTOR IN PUBLIC EYES—His Model
Airship Causes the Aviators to Notice His Work”:
Inventor Lyman Gilmore of Colfax well known in this
city whose flight of a model airship last Sunday attracted
much attention at Colfax is already receiving much attention and is fairly showered with letters appertaining to
apparatus.
And the article goes on to repeat the Sacramento Bee
article. If one reads only the first two articles one is led to
the conclusion that the aircraft was manned as it flew. It is
true that the word “model” does appear elsewhere in the
text of these first reports—however, the term is used in an
ambiguous context:
For many years Lyman Gilmore of this place has been
making a study of aeroplanes . . . with an idea of making
a successful model of an airship.
Access to the last two articles informs one that the aircraft was definitely unmanned and was a fairly small
model. True, the flight was remarkable, but the first reporter should be called to account for the reporting of partial information.
The second item is to document the award from the
Daniel Guggenheim Fund to Lyman Gilmore Jr. Gilmore
received many awards during his lifetime, as well as recognition for his far-ranging talents, from both civic and technical organizations. Most of these had to do with his
advanced aircraft designs. However, a little-known award
given him in the late 1920s was based on a different area of
Lyman Gilmore Jr. in his later years.
(Searls Library photo)