New Britain herald., 1918-06-20
'CHARL|E' HAMILTON
 IS BACK ON EARTH
At Least This Reads Much Like
 New Britain'S C. K.'

1 tached to the 1S4th Aero Squadron
 and eagerly awaits the day when he will be sent oVer.''
 From the foregoing, friends of the 1 late Charles K. Hamilton of this city l might judge that "C. K" has discov- cred a route back from that bourne l from whence no traveller ever return l eth. The statement hemmed in by 1 quotation marks is taken from an ar ticle written by George Trevor for the Air Scout. a magazine published in the interests of aviation and from a perusal of many of the facts the reading matter that precedes the above startling statement one is led to believe that the one, only and orig
 inal Charles K. Hamilton, dead and at
 rest these many, many moons, is now at Garden City, Long Island, learning how to fly an airpIane with the avoWed purpose of vending his way bithely through the clouds until he reaches spot from which he might cast bomb perpendicularly on the head of His Wilhelmic Majesty, the Kaiser. If memory serves, Charles K. Hamilton is dead. That another Charles K. Hamilton has taken his place, if such were possible makes no difference. The original Charles K. Hamilton cannot be resurrected and no substitute can ever take his place
 in the hearts of those who laughed with him and who admired his intre- pedity
 Here is the way the Air Scout brings Hamilton back to life: "'Chuck' Hamilton was never 1 meant for earthly things. He gave ] evidence of this at fourteen years of 1 age by jumping off the roof of his ! fathers barn suspended from his big 1 sisters new silk umbrella. When 1 Father Hamilton found out that his l son was unhurt, he proceeded to rem 1 edy that condition! This youthful ex- 1 pertinent proved two things to Chuck l first that as a parachute a new silk 1 umbrella Is a mighty good rain pro- 1 tector and second, that it isn't the l fall that kills you but the sudden | stoppage. Anyhow, Charles got in
 timately acquainted with the hard. ] hard ground and renewed that &C., l quaintance at regular intervals l throughout his life. Army medical 1 officers still contend that there are some bones i'll his body which are not
 broken but we frankly doubt it. l Instead of being deterred from his aerial ambition. Chuck's persistency l to hitch his wagon to a star was fired | by the umbrella episode. He began 1 to attend county fairs, for Hamilton, l like many another great man, was
 born and bred a farmer on an Ili-
 nois farm, and no travelling circus ! could escape him. We learn confi- dentially that Chuck got his light 1 touch on the controls from handling 1 his fathers mules. Riding old Jerry
 developed the boys sense of balance ! to an uncanny degree.
 At eighteen they couldn't hold 1 Chuck down any longer. Life on ter ra f1rma had become too slow for
 him. The Wrights had begun to get
 off the ground and Charles figured
 that if he had to die he might as we'll
 live fast while the going good, So
 he got him lot of piano wire and
 match sticks and made him an air ! plane. Had it flown, it would have 1 been quite a success. Luckily for this ! biography however, the old buggy
 clung to Mother Earth.
 l "Now the scene shifts. Our hero
 leaves his little gray home in the
 West and boards the train which l takes him out into the cold, cruel
 world. What is this familiar scene
 which we see before us? You have
 guessed it-Hempstead plains. FrO1oSSOr IOu1 bdlOWln naO made
 an a1rplane that he hoped would fly l His next job was to find someone | blase enough to take it up--someone
 a bit tired of living preferred. Tom | Baldwin didn't want to fly himself because, you see, he had made the | machine and knew just how good it was.
 "In this dilemma along come Ham iton. Closeup of Hamilton clim ping into the 'box-kite'. which Captain called his Red Devil', while the gray
 haired, jovial Captain phoned to the undertaken of Hepstead. This hap pened far west on the plains. from the present flying field, for the only flying field at that time on Long Isl and was imm ediately across the road from the Mineola Fair Grounds It was later moved east to the Wright Flying Field, which has since been converted into a government flying place, now Field One.
 Hamilton fooled Captain Baldwin.
 He not only went up, but he actually
 came down-alive! They sold the
 motor for scrap iron, and the planes
 were picked up by a hungry mob of
 souvenir hunters but the main point
 was that the undertaken had to go
 home empty handed Since then
 Chuck has been fooling the old boy
 with the scythe right along. He has
 been helping to support divers hos
 pitals and has greatly advanced the
 cause of medical science Tn fact the
 Mayo brothers owe a great deal of
 their technique to the privilege of vi-
 visecting Chuck.
 "Once up, there was no suppressing
 Chuck Hamilton Within a month 1
 after his first flight he had flown from l
 New York to Phi1adelphia-the first |
 city to city flight in aviation history {