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FROM THE HAROLD & MARVEL MOREHOUSE AVIATION PIONEERS COLLECTION 
NATIONAL AIR & SPACE MUSEUM
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James J. Ward
Early Curtiss Exhibition Pilot

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James Ward was born in Chicago, Illinois, January 7th, 1882. In his youth he raced bicycles, was a jockey, then turned to motorcycle and automobile racing. He loved automobiles and later became a taxi driver. 

While Bud Mars and the Curtiss aviators were flying at an air meet at Memphis, Tennessee in April, 1910 Ward was driving a taxi there and became their driver. Mars took a liking to Ward and offered him a job as one of his mechanics, which Ward accepted. He soon became eager to learn to fly but remained with Mars until the Sheepshead Bay, New York, meet in August and there Mars recommended Ward to James Plew, a wealthy Chicagoan who owned a Curtiss plane and was interested in helping young aviation hopefuls.

Plew took Ward on and he started teaching himself to fly at the Hawthorne Race Track, Chicago. The plane was one of the very first Curtiss biplanes, with a 4 cylinder 25-30 H.P. engine. It was one Curtiss had used to fly some of his first exhibitions and Plew had purchased it from Curtiss earlier that year. Ward was an instinctive, natural-born flyer and was doing so well by himself that when Curtiss discovered him there some time later, he was engaged for exhibition work with the Curtiss team. Ward re

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