March 21, 2008

John Joseph Montgomery: Aviation pioneer

By Sharon Ann Breden, CSJ
Special to the Times

It was just a simple math problem: curiosity plus a boy plus innate intelligence, and the sum was the invention of the flying machine.

History was recounted by Sister Sharon Ann Breden, a cousin of Montgomery, at the dedication of the new monument to John J. Mont-gomery. Photo by Bill Highlander

John Joseph Montgomery, born in 1858 in Yuba City, California, came from a family that was strong, stubborn and one that valued education. His father, Zachary, was a lawyer and during Grover Cleveland’s administration, was an Assistant Attorney General in Washington, D.C.

John’s mother, Ellen Evoy, who was the daughter of the famous Temescal (Oakland) pioneer, Bridget Evoy, came first from Ireland to Baltimore, then west to Missouri and finally, as a widow, led a wagon train of settlers from Salt Lake City to Bear Valley after the male captain of the train chose a different route than Ellen had been advised. The men were never heard from again.

The Evoy family moved to Rancho Temescal in 1854 in what is present-day Oakland, near 40th Street and Telegraph. It was here in Oakland that Ellen and Zachary, a widower, met. They settled in Yuba City where they raised seven children, moving eventually to Oakland in 1863. John was five years old.

It was at grandma Evoy’s ranch that Montgomery began to observe the flight of her turkeys, the movement of clouds across the sky and the changing shadows on the ground. As a baby, John’s mother recalled how he would lie on his stomach with a pillow under his stomach and pretend to fly. So the curiosity and the boy had met.

When Montgomery was 11, he saw his first balloon demonstration and he immediately made an eight-inch replica of the balloon complete with basket and wheels for landing. Everything that had the possibility of flying became a source for study and experimentation, from a spinning top, to a piece of sheet iron with a curled edge to those famous turkeys and birds which he never let sit still.

Montgomery began his primary grades in Yuba City at Notre Dame Academy, and since no record of school in Oakland is on file, it is assumed that he was home-schooled by his parents, both highly capable of educating their son. Young Montgomery completed his secondary studies at the Christian Brothers’ Academy in Oakland and went on the college at Santa Clara College (now University) and then St. Ignatius College, later becoming the University of San Francisco. Montgomery completed his Masters Degree in Science in 1880. The following year, Zachary Montgomery retired his family to a new home south of San Diego in Otay Valley. John joined his family in 1882 and it was here that he began in earnest his experimentation with gliders.

John J. Montgomery on “The Evergreen,” one of his creations.

Unlike the Wright brothers who refer to their flying machine as having two “aeroplanes” – the upper and lower main wings of their bi-plane – Montgomery used the word “aeroplane” for his whole machine and the patent he was granted in 1906 was for an “Aeroplane.”

Montgomery continued to explore wing shapes, warping the wings to give the machine the ability to bank and turn – the function of the modern day aileron and flaps. His trial flights tested his theory about parabolic curves and the relationship of weight and wingspan to achieve a stable equilibrium.

In August of 1883, man’s first controlled airborne flight took place when John Montgomery and his brother James took his “finished” aeroplane to Otay Mesa hidden in a wagon under hay, so to avoid the ridicule of neighbors which had made John almost a recluse. On the edge of the mesa, the brothers prepared the machine and waited for the breezes to arrive. With James ready to pull a rope about a dozen feet in front of the craft, he waited for John to give him the signal and run with the rope pulling the glider. James only ran a few steps before the “Gull Glider” was aloft.
“At a height of about fifteen feet, the wiry, one-hundred and thirty pound John Joseph Montgomery flew six hundred feet to a graceful landing. It was the world’s first controlled heavier-than-air flight and preceded Orville Wright’s engine-driven flight by twenty years.” (San Diego Historical Society: San Diego Biographies)

Montgomery’s sensation was one of fear until he realized that he was very secure in the solid support of the wing-surface. The wing was, and continues to be, a major element of successful flight. His basic laws of aerodynamics were gathered into a paper that he presented to the Aeronautical Conference at Chicago in early August 1893. Publication of one of his papers proves that Montgomery was the true originator of Basic Flying. It was in Chicago that Montgomery had the fortune of meeting Octave Chanute, another pioneer aviator.

Montgomery soon returned to northern California, first teaching at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Rohnerville and then at Santa Clara College in 1897. In the years between the first flight and his arrival at Santa Clara, Montgomery continued to build machines and test-fly them in various places around the Bay area: Aptos beach (Manresa State Park), and later, in 1904, off an old stage road between Watsonville and San Juan Bautista. He was now testing the machine’s lifting power in preparation for a larger man-carrying, tandem-wing aircraft.

John J. Montgomery (second from right) stands with his glider “Santa Clara,” 1905.

Further testing his theories, Montgomery hired a young stunt-type pilot, Daniel Maloney, to ride in the aircraft as it was towed by a hot air balloon to a height of eight hundred feet, cut loose and descended to the ground making a safe landing. This experiment was repeated on April 29, 1905 in Santa Clara, in a college campus vineyard close to the present intersection of Lafayette and Santa Clara Streets. The aeroplane-glider, Santa Clara, was taken up to a height of 4000 feet when Maloney cut the lift rope from the balloon and became the first man to fly a maneuvered flight.

Unfortunately, Maloney was killed in a flight on July 18, 1905, when one of the towropes tangled around the right wing and caused parts of the craft to break. Maloney was only 26 and Montgomery was devastated at his death. Eventually, Montgomery returned to his work with a new aeronaut, David Wilkie, and continued making adjustments to the tail section. Montgomery’s theories and design were correct – it was the small imperfections that continued to plague his work.

On June 30, 1910, John Montgomery married Regina Cleary of San Francisco. Regina was a beautiful and talented woman, an accomplished pianist and writer of verse, and she supplied the encouragement that Montgomery needed to continue his work to complete plans for the addition of an engine to his craft that would supply adequate power lift and distance flight.

In October 1911, Regina, John and two mechanics set up camp in Evergreen Valley on the Ramondo Ranch. From these hills, to the east of San Felipe Road, Montgomery performed 55 successful flights, using wooden rails to takeoff, to glide, circle, rise and control a landing back on the top of the hills or into the grassy bottom land.

Of one concern to Cornelius Reinhart, one of the mechanics, were the stove bolts that over-protruded from the main wings to the fuselage – right at the level of the pilot’s head. He wanted to cut them back, but Montgomery insisted that he might want to adjust their length. On October 31, 1911, Montgomery had made some adjustments in the center of gravity to reduce the angle of the wind force on the wing and he wanted to try the new measurements. At between 13 and 23 feet, the aircraft stalled and sideslipped. As it fell gently to the earth, it turned over and Montgomery’s skull was punctured behind the right ear by one of the stove bolts.

The artist who created “Soaring Flight,” Kent Rogers, recounts the research for the design and the work of the artisans who put everything together. Photos by Bill Highlander

Montgomery’s wife witnessed the crash and was with him as he died. When the doctor finally arrived two hours later, John Montgomery was dead at the age of fifty-three. He is buried in the Cleary Family grave at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma – his name is not noted on the tombstone.

John Montgomery has never been afforded the credit and recognition he deserved, neither in life nor in death. And yet, avid students of aviation history have recognized his importance in the development of flight. The strength and stubbornness he inherited both aided his work, and in the end contributed to his downfall. His work was original and his.

Many other aviation pioneers of that time studied his concepts and theories and applied them to their work. Montgomery failed to patent all of his ideas and consequently others took credit in their application of those ideas. Montgomery heirs filed a patent litigation against the Wright Company over the wing description in each patent, but lost in court.

Curiosity, a boy, an innate intelligence. Add the elements together and it equals a shot at the moon and beyond.

Sister Sharon Breden is a relative of John Montgomery. Her great-grandmother was a sister of John’s father.