The medal shown here was designed for the third annual Boston Aviation Meet, 29 June-7 July 1912. The event was marred by the tragic death of pilot Harriet Quimby and her passenger William Willard over the Neponset River tidal flats on 1 July.

The aviation craze

Nine years after the Wright brothers demonstrated the first successful sustained flight under power, the world had gone mad for aviation. Thousands of enthusiasts flocked to air meets to watch intrepid pilots race in machines barely more than kites powered by motors, including in Massachusetts. From 29 June through 7 July 1912, the third annual Boston aviation meet took place at Squantum airfield. Situated between Quincy and Dorchester Bays, the airfield boasted a newly constructed grass runway, grandstand seating for 10,000 attendees, hangar space for 20 airplanes, and parking for 3,000 cars. One of the principal attractions of the meet, Miss Harriet Quimby—the first American woman to earn an international pilot’s license—also offered paid rides to the public and was scheduled to close the event by piloting a U.S. air mail flight to New York City.

“TWO KILLED AT SQANTUM.”

According to an article in the Boston Evening Transcript on July 2, towards the end of a successful first day, attendees watched Harriet Quimby and her passenger, William A.P. Willard, manager of the meet, take off in her new Blériot monoplane. They flew at an altitude of 3,000 feet to Boston Light and back with ease. Her return approach was too high, requiring her to make a wide descending circle over the Neponset River tidal flats to land safely. At 1,000 feet the plane suddenly bucked and the nose dropped straight downward. Witnesses saw her passenger catapult from the plane and observed Harriet struggle to gain control before the nose dropped again, overturning the plane and ejecting her as well. Both fell to their deaths in the mudflats, 200 feet from shore.

The Transcript followed their account of the event with the announcement that the officers and pilots involved in the meet had voted to continue with the programmed events. Aviator Blanch Stuart Scott, who witnessed the accident from her plane, summarized their sentiments: “It would do the science of aviation no good to refuse to fly . . . While all the aviators were shocked, none of them have lost their nerve. Many of them have witnessed fellow-aviators fall to their death before, but they are all possessed of the confidence which augurs well for the science of aviation.” The article following this account, however, laid out aviation’s “Death Roll”: from Otto Lienthal’s 1896 death in a glider crash to Quimby and Willard . . . 172 lives lost over 16 years in pursuit of manned flight.

Who Was Harriet Quimby?

Harriet, known as “Hattie” to family and friends, was born to William and Ursula Cook Quimby in 1875. A Union Civil War veteran, William settled a Michigan homestead while Ursula concocted and sold her own liver tonic. Failing at farming, in 1884 the family moved to Arroyo Grande, California. Young Hattie was outgoing, inquisitive, and adventurous. She exhibited an appetite for speed at a young age and was fearless in pursuit of new experiences. During the Panic of 1893, the family moved to San Francisco, settling near Chinatown. Here Hattie developed her life-long interest in, and appreciation of, foreign culture and customs.

Bohemian and unconventional, Hattie worked as an artist’s model, an actress, and in 1901 became a journalist. Her first article, “The Artist’s Colony at Monterey” appeared on October 1 in the San Francisco Sunday Call. Her colorful, engaging accounts of modern life and events, theater, and musical programs, illustrated by her own photographs, were varied and popular. In 1903, she decided to try her luck in New York City. Arriving with no contacts or acquaintances, she sold her first article to Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly and continued to write for that publication for the remainder of her life.

Bitten by the aviation bug

While covering the Belmont Park Aviation meet in 1910, an 8-day event on Long Island, Quimby—writing under the pseudonym Arthur H. Gleason—became determined to earn her own pilot’s license. She arranged to take flying lessons at the Moisant family’s flying school on Long Island, documenting her flight training for Leslie’s beginning with “How a Woman Learns to Fly.” Her course, 33 lessons of 2 to 5 minutes each for 11 weeks, concluded on 2 August 1911, with Fédération Aéronautique Internationale pilot’s license no. 37 granted upon successful completion of the Aero Club of America’s tests for distance and maneuvering skills and altitude and landing accuracy. In the process, Harriet set the American record for landing accuracy of a monoplane.

Aviation goals

While continuing her journalistic career, Harriet joined the team of Moisant International Aviators, travelling to various aviation meets to earn prize money. Although the purses were less for women than for men, these earnings provided a financial boost for Harriet and her parents. On 4 September 1911, she took home $1,500 ($52,582 in 2026 dollars) for a single moonlit ride from a fair in Staten Island. Driven by her competitive spirit, Harriet determined to become the first woman to pilot a plane across the English Channel, a notoriously difficult feat. She began her preparations for the crossing in great secrecy, hiring A. Leo Stevens, a balloonist and inventor of the safety parachute, as her business manager.

When the plane she purchased from Louis Blériot was not ready in time for her projected flight on 15 April 1912, she borrowed one from him. Windy conditions prevented her attempt that day, so the next morning, Harriet, wrapped in 3 layers of wool and silk clothing, wearing 2 sets of gloves, and with a hot water bottle strapped to her waist under 2 coats, took flight in a plane she had never piloted before. Her only navigation equipment through clouds and fog was a compass. Fog and wind pockets tested her skill and composure. She finally had to drop below the cloud line to see if she had reached France. She saw beaches but couldn’t find Calais.

Dropping to 500 feet, she opted to land on the beach rather than freshly tilled fields. It had taken her a little over an hour to reach the shore just south of Boulogne. She received an enthusiastic welcome from the locals, who helped move her plane away from the tide and warmed her with tea and food. Harriet arrived in Paris that evening, tired but happy in anticipation of the morning newspaper’s triumphant account of her historic adventure. That was not to be, however. In her preparations for the Channel crossing, Harriet had not heard of the loss of the Titanic on 15 April; the newspapers were full of the horrifying details of that tragedy, overshadowing her own epic flight.

“I will meet my fate rejoicing”

Harriet returned home and resumed her literary career. She left the Moisant International Aviators team and Leo Stevens managed her flight schedules and contracts. Quimby received her new Blériot Type XI-2 “Artillerie,” a two-seater military monoplane with a 70 horsepower Gnome engine, from France in time for the Boston Aviation meet in 1912. With an additional seat, the powerful plane’s center of gravity had shifted, making the aircraft nose-heavy, likely contributing to the tragic accident that ended her life. In a prophetic message left for her parents before her trip to Boston she had written, “If bad luck should befall me, I want you to know that I will meet my fate rejoicing.”

By Anne Bentley, Curator of Art & Artifacts, Emerita