Rochester, New Hampshire – September 26, 1912

     On September 26, 1912, Boston aviator Phillips W. Page was scheduled to give a flight exhibition at a fair in Rochester before a crowd of 25,000 people.  However, as Page was taking off, and had reached an altitude of barely 25 feet, a sudden gust of wind tipped the plane causing a wing to drop and strike a fence near the reviewing stand.  The plane hit the ground and was smashed to pieces.  As dozens of people rushed over to be of assistance, Page crawled out from underneath, shaken and bruised, but wearing a smile.    

     Page had survived a previous accident on December 9, 1911, when he and a passenger received “a ducking” when the wing tip of their airplane hit the water off Marblehead, Massachusetts

     Phillips Ward Page (1885-1917) was an early New England aviator, and Harvard graduate.  One could say his career began when he took a job as Aviation Editor for the Boston Herald,  and in his capacity as editor took several plane trips around Boston.  He obtained his pilot’s license from the Wright Flying School in Dayton Ohio on October 25, 1911, and later became an instructor for the Burgess Company of Marblehead where he tested some of the newest Burgess-Curtis aircraft. 

     During World War I, Page served as a naval aviation instructor at Squantum Naval Base in Massachusetts, before going overseas.  Ensign Page died in the service of his country on  December 17, 1917, when the seaplane he was piloting crashed in the English Channel.    

     Sources:

     The Bare Daily Times, “Aviator Had A Fall”, September 27, 1912, Page 2.

     Smithsonian Institution Research Information System (SIRIS) catalog – Phillips Ward Page

     Aero & Hydro magazine, “Activity Of Aviator And Builder” December 9, 1911, page 201

     Washington Times, “Ensign Page, D.C. Flyer, Killed In Accident Abroad”, December 20, 1917, Page 8

     Washington Times, “20 D.C. Men Gave Lives To Nation In Year Of War”, April 8, 1918