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338 

[[Stamp]] 
FROM THE 
FLYING PIONEERS BIOGRAPHIES 
OF HAROLD E. MOREHOUSE 
[[End Stamp]] 

18 CASTLE W. SHAFFER (ROBERT C. ST. HENRY) 
10 Early [[Crossed-out: Pioneer]] Curtiss Aviator 

Castle W. Shaffer was born in Sutton, Clay County, Nebraska, January 28, 1882, son of Jacob A. and Sarah L. St. Henry Shaffer. He attended local schools graduating from High School in 1898. Following his mother's death in 1895, and after graduation, he moved with his father to western Nebraska, eventually settling in Alliance, where young Shaffer became employed by the Union Pacific Railroad as an apprentice machinist. 

[[Photo on Right]]

He remained there for nearly two years then traveled east and worked as a machinist with the Buick-Sherwood Gas Engine Company, a small machine shop in Detroit, Michigan. There, in 1901, Shaffer helped David D. Buick start making the parts for the first Buick automobile. The engine for this vehicle was a 2 cylinder 12 hp., horizontally-opposed type. [[crossed-out: and]] Shaffer helped assemble this first automobile then learned to drive it. The project grew and he was sent out with each car to help the purchaser learn to drive and manage it. 

During this period, Bailey's Department Store, of Cleveland, Ohio, ordered [[crossed-out: one]] a Buick with a special delivery body as an advertising novelty. This was probably the first such vehicle made in the United States, and Shaffer was sent to Cleveland where he drove it all around the city for three months, making package deliveries and advertising Bailey's Department Store. [[crossed-out: Soon]] The test drivers from the various Detroit automobile companies began to race each other for fun when they met on the 

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