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FROM THE FLYING PIONEERS BIOGRAPHIES OF HAROLD E. MOREHOUSE

RUTHERFORD B. PAGE

Early Curtiss Sportsman Pilot 

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Rutherford B. Page was born in New York City April 27, 1887 of wealthy parents. He attended local and Taft Prep schools, then took Mechanical Engineering at Sheffield Scientific School, Yale University, graduating with a Ph B in 1910. During college he played on the Freshman Hockey Team and was a member of the Yale Aero Club. 

He developed an early interest in aviation during the many flying activities in the New York area. Reportedly he had one of more plane rides in a Farman-type biplane at Nassau Boulevard, Long Island, New York, in 1910 or early 1911. 

After graduating Page spent some time operating a farm near Milford, Connecticut. Following this he was connected with the Crane Valve Company at Bridgeport, Connecticut for a time. He took a hunting trip to the Canadian Northwest during the summer of 1911 and at that period decided he wanted to learn to fly. 

As a result he enrolled for flight instruction at the Curtiss School at Hammondsport, New York during the late summer of 1911, then moved with the school to North Island, San Diego, California in November for winter operations. In his class were J. L. Callan, S. C. Lewis, Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Atwater, Fred Hoover, Oscar Solbrig, William Hoff and Julia Clark. The instructor was W. W. McClaskey.

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