Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-10
HAM|LT0N'S AIR LIFE
Started Career as a Very
Small Youth.
USED MOTHERS PARASOL
Jumped From Barn Roof-Tried
Kites and Balloons-First
Aeroplane Ascension.

Aeroplane Ascension.
NEW YORK, June 1O.-"There is
boy who either will kill himself
before he is five years older doing
those things or else will become the
greatest balloonist the world has ever
seem" was the remark of a New Britain
neighbor of Mrs. n NJ. Beaudette the
mother Of Charles X. Hamilton, one June
day twenty years ago, as he pointed to
the lad, who was tinkering with sail
wagon on the sidewalk in front of his
mothers house.
Only few weeks before Mrs. Beau
dette had paid rather large grocery
bill, whose principal items were two bar
rels Of sugar and a crate of eggs.
Wagon Propelled by Sail.
Also she had bound up her sons arms
and legs in arnica and bandageS a few
hours before settling with the irate gro
Ger, whose delivery wagon had been upset
and sadly damaged in a collision be-
tween it and a homemade wagon fitted
with huge lateen sail that Charlie. as
his mother calls him, had fashioned out
of his mothers barn and four iron casters
lifted from an old-fa Shioned bed.
According to Mrs. Beaudette, her son
was born with the desire to do these
things in the sky which he has accom-
plished SO successfully in his twenty-nine
years of life. From her point Of view. he
has performed as a natural consequence
of inherited wish and latent ability those
remarkable feats of aviation which have
startled the whole world, and it is to
those tendencies with which he was born
and which he has since carried to ma
turity of his own accord that she attrib-
utes his undertaking to fly next Saturday
from New York to Philadelphia and re-
turn.
Flying Is Born in Him.
From earliest childhood. says his moth
er, Charles Hamilton had given unmis-
taxable evidence Of his desire to leave
the earth and invade the skies The moth
er-who, with perfect confidence In his
ability, saw her son go aloft in an aero.
plane for the first time last Friday al
Mineola, and Immediately wanted to take
a trip on it with mandates her first real
ization Of this fact to the day wher
Charles, but eight years Old surrepti
tiously borrowed her best parasol, climb
ed with 1t tightly clutched in his hands
to the caves Of the barn, and then jump
ed off, employing the parsol parachute
wise to break his fall.
He not only broke his fall, but he com
pletely smashed the parasol in that little
escapade. But Mrs Beaudette did no
have the heart to punish the child for hi:
act.
Il realized that, after all, it was only
the budding desire to fly that l mysel
have felt since early girlhood. How
could 1 punish my boy for doing what
ALWAYS had wanted n dO2'
First Trip in Balloon.
The interim between that barnard par
asol episode of Hamilton's achievement
of his Unsuitable ambition-to hy-was the
matter of only a few years. He managed
to get a. balloon man who was giving
exhibitions in spherical gas bag JUS
outside Of New Britain to take him up
From that moment his fever to invade
the sky knew no bounds. and, as he him.
self put it only a few days ago, never is
he happier than when up in his aerop1ant
doing the now-famous Hamilton dip.
After a lapse of several years, during
which he left his beloved machinery anG
aerial paraphernalia long enough to gel
In some schooling. Hamilton turned his
attention to ballooning on his own &C.
count. Then kites Of all fashions, shapes
and sizes took up his attention
The dirigible balloon coming in. he
turned to that, and for four years gave
exhibitions that startled the world by
their daring and success. Then he re
turned to the kite end of the game
working with Israel Ludlow along those
lines of aviation. Finally, on November
20 last. he made his first aeroplane as
cension. and since then he has done al.
most everything possible to do with a
heavier-than-air machine of the present.
day type.
Cool and Clever.
These incidents show the remarkabl,
GOODNESS of the man and his cleverness il
extricating himself from any dangerou.
position in the air.
Making an ascent in dirigible balloon
at Paterson. n. j., few years ago, all O
his sandbags fell off the carriages 90
feet from the ground. In an instant tn,
machine had risen to height of 600,
feet, with Hamilton trying to open tn,
outlet valve OF the gasbag, and finding i
choked.
Still higher it went. and Hamilton
climbed up the rigging to the bag, intend
ing to cut it open. Just as he reached tn,
valve the bag burst and commenced t.
fall. 1t was then at a height of 400,
Hamilton carried.
Hamilton weighs only no pounds, t,
which fact he attributes his escape tina
day. The silk of the bag, still attached
by many cords to the carriage, fell owe
it in such wise as to form parachute
and the whole thing descended slowly t,
earth, and Hamilton stepped off when /
reached the ground. none the worse TO
his experience.
A few years later, while trying one o
Ludlow's kites at Ormond, Fla, the who'll
thing crumpled up while at a height o
800 feet and under tow Of an automobile
going twenty miles an hour.
- he realized what had happened
Hamilton. from his seat below the lowe
surface, climbed through the kite so as t,
have it interposed between him and TIL
ground as it landed. He was successful
and his fall was broken in that way. H,
again escaped unframed.
Accident at Seattle.
At Seattle few months ago. where h,
was giving aeroplane exhibitions owe
Lake Washington. Hamilton started on,
Of his famous dips from a height Of so
feet He intended. he said, just to touch
the water with the wheels Of his chassis
and then, skipping like fiat stone thrown
along the surface, mount again into tn,
air
He miscalculated the distance, however