UPDATED 29 October 2015
On July 22, 1915, (Page 8) The Boston Glove reported:
TO FLY OVER COMMON
Miss Donna Montran Expects to Drop Pennants and Tickets for Show From Biplane,
Miss Donna Montran, one of the pretty “belles of 1861” in “The Birth of a Nation,” at the Tremont Theatre, is anticipating the time of her life this afternoon, when she expects to make two round trips between Saugus and Boston Common with Capt J. Chauncey Redding in his biplane, incidentally showering “Birth of a Nation” pennants and free tickets for the Tremont Theatre on the heads of the crowd that will witness the flight from the Common. The two flights over the Common in the vicinity of the Tremont Theatre are scheduled, one for about 1:30, or not long after, the other a short time before the matinee performance is over, probably about 4:30. During the first flight the biplane will circle about above the State House dome.
Miss Montran will be attired similarly to the lobby girls at the Tremont Theatre, though without the hoopskirt. She will drop 100 pennants on the Common, 25 of which will have tickets for the theatre attached to them. The distribution will take place during both flights, and those who capture the tickets will be able to see “The Birth of a Nation” free of cost.
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Source Boston Globe, Page 5, July 23, 1915 Free Tickets From the Sky via newspaperarchive.com |
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Boston Herald, July 23, 1915 Source: Genealogy Bank |
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Washington Herald August 15, 1915 Source: Library of Congress |
Another article appeared in the Washington Herald a few weeks later. That article indicates that the plane was a Burgess-Wright aeroplane as reported in Aerial Age Weekly. It also mentions that Miss Montran was, “delighted with her fifty minutes in the air.”
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J. Chauncey Redding’s aeroplane on the beach, Week of 6 Sep, 1915.
Photo: Courtesy Gertrude Palmer.
From HAMPTON: A CENTURY OF TOWN AND BEACH, 1888-1988
by Peter Evans Randall
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Finally, I was able to find a photo on Wikimedia photo of the Wright Model B which was licenced to Burgess to make the Burgess-Wright Model F. This was the exact type of aircraft J. Chauncey Redding used during Donna’s flight.
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© Jarek Tuszynski / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-3.0 & GDFL |
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