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[[stamped]] FROM THE FLYING PIONEERS COLLECTION HAROLD E. MOREHOUSE [[stamped]]

gliders in towed flight. His first work was from a lot along Riverside Drive in New York City where he was towed aloft by an automobile. This was following by glides over the Hudson River towed by a motorboat.

In January, 1906 Hamilton was flying the Ludlow Kites at Ormond Beach, Florida, where the experiments ended after some 63 flights in several different forms of craft. During these tests there were some smashups, but Hamilton escapes serious injury. In June Hamilton was engaged by Roy Knabenshue to fly his airship at Montreal, Canada, where he gave an exhibition on June 12th. He remained with Knabenshue for a time and as a dirigible operator he caught on quickly.

Leaving Knabenshue, Hamilton returned to his balloons through 1907, making ascensions and multiple parachute jumps at Battery Park and other points in the New York City area. By this time he was known as one of the most daring parachutists of that era. Not satisfied with one, he developed a stunt of using five chutes, cutting each away in succession until he reached the ground with the last one.

In May, 1908 Hamilton was back with Knabenshue at Toledo, Ohio to help fly a new 3-man airship he had just finished. Following the first tests with Knabenshue, Hamilton and Earl Hess on board, they started a tour of exhibitions. During the summer the airship was destroyed by fire in a bad storm at Des Moines, Iowa. Following this Hamilton purchased an airship and started out on his own.

In early 1909 he toured Japan and there made a record dirigible flight crossing the Bay of Osaki. This was the first airship ever seen in the Orient and his daring flights were wildly acclaimed. Following his return to the Untied States Hamilton made flights with his dirigible during the summer months at Brighton Beach, near Coney Island, Long Island, New York. Reportedly he first became seriously in the aeroplane when Bleriot crossed the English channel in July, 1909, then in August Glenn Curtiss won the Gordon Bernett Cup Race at Rheins, France, and this apparently influenced Hamilton's

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