Harris Whittemore Jr., aviation pioneer – Part III

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Unnamed airmail pilots gather at Polo Field in Washington, D.C., in May 1918, when airmail service first began in the United States. (Library of Congress, Harris & Ewing Collection photo)

By DR. ROBERT L. RAFFORD

While American airmail had begun in 1918, official government contracts commenced in 1925. In February 1925, President Coolidge signed the Kelly Act, which allowed the postmaster general to award commercial airmail contracts to private companies. Consequently, on October 6, 1925, Harris Whittemore Jr.’s Colonial Air Lines Inc. was awarded the nation’s commercial airmail contract No. 1, flying airmail between New York and Boston with a stopover in Hartford.

Immediately after winning the contract, Colonial Air Lines merged with Eastern Air Transport Inc., and the resulting airline became Colonial Air Transport Inc. Colonial planes already were flying local routes from New York to Boston, and plans were underway to fly to other cities. In fact, the company was already talking about expanding across the country with airmail and freight, and, in addition, flying passengers.

It sometimes is reported that the country’s first government airmail contract was awarded to Colonial Air Transport, or even Eastern Air Transport Inc., but newspaper accounts do not support this. Instead, it was awarded to Harris Whittemore Jr.’s Colonial Air Lines before his company merged with Eastern Air Transport. Rival Eastern had lost the bidding war to Colonial, so merging seemed efficacious.

Juan Terry Trippe, a vice-president of Eastern Air Transport, has sometimes been credited, incorrectly I believe, with achieving the first airmail contract. Trippe would go on to become a celebrated aviation power as head of Pan-American Airways. He later became the general manager of Colonial Air Transport Inc., but it was Harris Whittemore Jr. who won the contract. Achieving the first airmail contract was monumental, and those of us in Middlebury and the Naugatuck Valley should be proud that official airmail service in this country began right here.

Finally, on the morning of July 1, 1926, the big day had arrived. There are some discrepancies in reporting, but the New York Times reported three planes took off at 6:10 a.m. from Hadley Field near New Brunswick, New Jersey (along with Teterboro Airport, Hadley was one of metropolitan New York’s major airfields), arriving at Hartford at 8:08 a.m. The planes were a Fokker Universal piloted by Major Talbot O. Freeman, Colonial’s treasurer and a veteran of the 140th Air Squadron during World War I; a Curtis-Lark piloted by Huestis Irving Wells; and another Fokker piloted by Le Roy Thompson, a native of Woodbury, Connecticut, tragically killed a few years later. After celebrations, they flew on to East Boston, escorted by three naval planes and arriving there at 9:36 a.m. Governor Trumbull, chairman of the board of Colonial, boarded Major Freeman’s plane to Boston.

The planes carried 417 pounds of mail and a shipment of dresses for Gilchrist’s Department Store in Boston that was delivered and placed on sale immediately. The return trips began at 6:10 p.m., with the three stopping at Hartford at 7:20 p.m., and then arriving at Teterboro Airport in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, about 9 p.m.

A large crowd of invited dignitaries, guests and the public were on hand in Hartford to greet the first flight as it stopped on its way north, including Middlebury’s Frederick Starkweather Chase (1862-1947), president of the Chase companies of Waterbury, and his brother, Irving Hall Chase (1858-1951), president of the Waterbury Clock Company. The pilots were greeted by popular actress Mary Ann Dentler of the Poli Players stock company. The 169th Infantry Band played while seven companies of that regiment paraded. Similar celebrations took place in Boston and New York City.

This series of articles will conclude with part IV.

You are urged to join the Middlebury Historical Society by going online at MiddleburyHistoricalSociety.org or visiting them on Facebook. Questions about membership can be sent to Bob at robraff@comcast.net.

This article was first published in the November 2021 issue of the Middlebury Bee-Intelligencer.