Earle Ovington

Earle Lewis Ovington (December 20, 1879 – July 21, 1936) was an American aeronautical engineer, aviator and inventor, and served as a lab assistant to Thomas Edison. Ovington piloted the first official airmail flight in the United States in a Blériot XI on September 23, 1911.^[1] He carried a sack of mail from Nassau Boulevard aerodrome, Garden City, New York, to Mineola, New York. He circled at 500 feet and tossed the bag over the side of the cockpit and the sack burst on impact, scattering letters and postcards.^[2] He delivered 640 letters and 1,280 postcards, including a letter to himself from the United States Post Office Department designating him as "Official Air Mail Pilot #1."^[3][4]

Earle Ovington and wife circa 1913

Edward M. Morgan, Frank Harris Hitchcock, and Earle Lewis Ovington and the Blériot XI

Edward M. Morgan, Frank Harris Hitchcock, and Earle Lewis Ovington

Biography

He was born on December 20, 1879, in Chicago, Illinois.^[5][6] He married Adelaide in 1911 and they had two children: Earle Kester Ovington (1912–2006) and Audrey Ovington (1914-2005)^[7][8] He built a house in the Samarkand area of Santa Barbara, California, which included an airstrip. While this airstrip wasn't the ultimate site of the Santa Barbara Municipal Airfield, it did serve in that capacity until Ovington's death. He died on July 21, 1936.^[4][9] He was cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea.^[8]

See also

• 1911 in aviation
• Dean Smith, pioneer air mail pilot

References

1. "America by Air".
2. "E. L. Ovington Dies. First Mail Pilot. Flew the Initial Consignment From Garden City Estates to Mineola, L. I., in 1911". The New York Times. July 23, 1936. Retrieved 2008-12-23. From Garden City Estates to Mineola, L. I., in 1911. Covered Ten-mile Route. Studied at Bleriot School at Pau, France. Owned Air Terminal at Santa [Barbara]
3. "Earle Ovington". Airmail Pioneers. Archived from the original on 2009-07-24. Retrieved 2008-12-23.
4. "Earle Lewis Ovington". Early Aviators. Retrieved 2008-12-23.
5. 1880 US Census
6. Passenger list traveling from Ensenada, Mexico on 17 Jun 1931 to Los Angeles, California
7. 1930 US Census
8. "To Cast Ovington Ashes Into Sea". The New York Times. July 24, 1936. Retrieved 2008-12-24. His widow, Mrs. Adelaide Ovington, said she would take the ashes East at a future date in compliance with the pioneer aviator's request.
9. "Ovington, First Air-Mail Pilot, Called By Death". Los Angeles Times. July 22, 1936. Archived from the original on May 25, 2011. Retrieved 2008-12-23. Earle L. Ovington, 56 years of age, pioneer aviator and first airmail pilot in America, died at 4 p.m. yesterday at the Good Samaritan Hospital. For seven weeks he had made a vain effort to cheat death as he had many times before in his eventful career as naval of-...

External links

• Ovington, Mrs. Adelaide Alexander, An Aviator's Wife, Dodd, Mead and company, 1920. Full text at archive.org.
• Campbell, Robert D., Reminiscences of a Birdman, Living History Press, 2009. ISBN 0615281885
• Earle Lewis Ovington at Flickr
• picture of Earle Lewis Ovington by photographer James Walter Collinge: last picture in gallery