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PO Box 7
273 Lakeview Avenue
Valhalla, NY 10595 |
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| HARRIET QUIMBY |
| Proceeding north, Katahdin turns into Katonah Avenue. Stop between the flrst and second circles in the road and walk to the right, onto the area known as Katonah Plot. Located in the central area of the plot, to the left of the obelisk, beneath two large oak trees and behind the Smith monument, is a tall marker with a plaque picturing an airplane. This monument belongs to the famous aviatrix, Harriet Quimby(1875-1912). The first American woman to receive a pilot's license and the first woman to fly solo over the English Channel, Harriet Quimby dazzled the aviation-crazed public with her extravagant purple satin flying ensemble and her extraordinary piloting. A journalist by trade, Quimby often wrote about the infant aviation industry and encouraged women to take up flying. "There is no reason to be afraid," she wrote in an article for Good Housekeeping, "as long as one is careful .... I never mount my machine until every wire and screw has been tested. I have never had an accident in the air." On July 1, 1912, Harriet Quimby's luck turned against her while flying to an aviation meet in Boston. Her plane dipped sharply and both she and her passenger fell from the rolling aircraft and were killed. |
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