Mailing List:2008-10-09 01, William Wallace Whitney Christmas, aviator & inventor, by Ron Kyser
Mailing List Archives > 2008-10-09 01, William Wallace Whitney Christmas, aviator & inventor, by Ron Kyser
From: R R Kyser <sorryken -at- att.net> Subject: [WHITNEY] William Wallace Whitney Christmas, aviator & inventor Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 12:07:54 -0500 One of the early aviators honored by North Carolina during her "Centennial of Flight" in 2003 was a native son (unlike the Wrights) with the amazing name of William Wallace Whitney Christmas: <a href="http://www.archives.ncdcr.gov/ffc/flight/aviation/william_christmas.html">http://www.archives.ncdcr.gov/ffc/flight/aviation/william_christmas.html</a> 2008 is the centennial of his pioneering construction of a plane with ailerons. He got the patent for this a couple years later, one of over three hundred granted to him. He'd certainly be near the top of the list of Whitney inventors had his father, rather than his mother, been the Whitney. His mother is Rhoda-9 (William Wallace-8, Joshua-7, Joshua-6, Thomas-5, William-4, William-3, Joshua-2, John-1). Her Whitneys were the first family of Binghamton, N.Y. Her father and uncle Virgil left for New Orleans in the 1830s to do business. Grandfather William Wallace died at 27, but lived long enough to marry a controversial local heiress named Myra Davis and sire four children, who were brought up by Myra and her second husband, Gen. Edmund P Gaines. He shows up on the WRG site in the 1880 census in one of the weirdest enumerations I've ever seen: <a href="http://wiki.whitneygen.org/wrg/index.php/Archive">http://wiki.whitneygen.org/wrg/index.php/Archive</a>: 1880_Census_Extracts%2C_District_of_Columbia The household of Randolph Getchell has at least 19 other residents, all of whom are "other" to him. Even his apparent wife Florence! (A record exists of a Florence Birney marrying a Randolph Getchell of his approximate age.) The fact that Randolph is a Census Bureau clerk himself makes this even stranger. At any rate, W. W. W. Christmas is there with his siblings and father-- though not mother-- and several Whitney relatives. Cheers, Ron Kyser
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