First Heavier-than-air Human Glight --- 1757????

[CalMeacham]

Okay, this one has me floored. I wrote a Teemings piece a couple of years ago about the heavier-than-air steam-powered airplane that John Stringfellow built and flew several times decades before the Wright Brothers (or any other claimants), but his was a “model” size airplane, not carrying people.

http://www.pursam.org/teemings/issue15/calmeacham.html
But I’ve lived in the Boston area longer than anywhere else, and just stumbled across this yesterday. Pepper Mill used to work just down the street from the Old North Church, which we’ve visited more than once, and I don’t recall eveer hearing of this before:

Most importantly, perhaps, according to the plaque in the small garden just north of here, this is the steeple from which John Childs “flew” in 1757 on three occasions, firing a pistol in the air on one of them! (no one really knows what this means).

http://hcs.harvard.edu/~fup/password/northend.html

The small formal garden and the fountain are good to refresh your spirit on a hot day, and the memorial plaques set into the walls are, in some cases, delightful. One reads:

1757-1923

Here on September 13, 1757
“John Childs who had given public notice of his intention to
Fly from the steeple of Dr. Cutler’s church, performed it to
The satisfaction of a great number of spectators.”

“In 1923 the year of the first continuous flight across
The continent this tablet has been placed here by
The Massachusetts Society of the Colonial Dames of America
To commemorate the two events.”

The question that comes to mind: would it not have been faster to dispatch John Childs by air from the steeple to Lexington and Concord rather than Dawes and Revere on horseback by land, on that historic night in 1775?

http://www.newenglandtravelplanner.com/go/ma/boston/sights/old_n_church.html

Regardinmg that suggestion about Paul Revere, someone’s already written a song about it, entitled Three if by Air!

http://www.music.com/release/blanket/1/

I can’t find anything else about this. It might not exist. Anyone else ever hear about this, or know more?
The best I can suggest is that, if this is for real, Childs demonstrated some sort of glider or parachute.

[ElvisL1ves]

Ever see the Aeronautical Oddities clip of the guy jumping off the bridge with bat wings strapped to his arms? Sez here that’s pretty much what it was:

On September 13, 1757, John Childs became the grandfather of American extreme sports when he strapped an umbrella-like contraption to his back and, to the delight of the crowd below, jumped from the tower, landing safely a few hundred feet away.

Other sites call it a “rudimentary glider”.