Plum Island Airport Facts Q&A

Plum Island Airport History Facts

Q: When was the Plum Island Airport founded?
A: Continuous commercial operation of the airport started in 1933 by Joseph Basso and W.F. Bartlett. However, it was designated as an Emergency Landing Field by the U.S. Army Air Service in 1926. In the late 20s, the new Civil Aviation Administration (now the FAA) installed a beacon tower at the Plum Island field as a primary navigation aid to mark the Boston-Portland air route. The base of the beacon tower can still be seen at the bend in the Plum Island Turnpike.

Q: I heard the airport is the second oldest airport in the country. Is that true?
A: This is a popular local legend, but it is not true. The source of the claim is the 1910 Burgess Aerodrome (much more on that below) on Plum Island proper, about two miles ESE of the current airport. The last flight at the Burgess Aerodrome was in August 1910, and there is no documented use of the current airport until 1926 (see above).

Q: OK, then what is Plum Island’s significance in aviation history?
A: The Burgess Aerodrome on Plum Island was New England’s first flying field. On February 28, 1910, a biplane designed and built by W. Starling Burgess, a Marblehead yacht builder, and Augustus Herring, an early aviation pioneer, took off from the frozen surface of Chebacco Lake in Hamilton, marking the first successful manned, powered flight in New England. After that single flight, Burgess moved the operation to Plum Island, where he built a hangar and conducted a series of increasingly successful tests through the spring and summer. The first flight at Plum Island was April 17, 1910.

Burgess, Herring, and their collaborators had connections to the most prominent aviation pioneers:

• Herring tested gliders with the Father of Aviation, Octave Chanute, on the shores of Lake Michigan as early as 1895. He attempted powered flight in 1898, and spent a brief time with the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk in 1902 before he overstayed his welcome.
• Alexander Pfitzner, who had worked with Glenn Curtiss, tested his biplane on Plum Island alongside Burgess.
• Norman Prince, later a co-founder of the Lafayette Escadrille, hosted the Chebacco Lake flight and participated in the 1910 Plum Island flight tests.
• Burgess witnessed the Wright Brothers’ demonstrations to the US Army in 1908, the first time large numbers of people had seen an aircraft in flight. In September 1910, Burgess displayed his biplanes at the Harvard-Boston Aero Meet, the first successful aero meet in the United States. As a result he sold several aircraft to Claude Grahame-White, the best known English aviator of the time (first aircraft export from the United States), and signed a contract with the Wrights to build their Flyers under license in his Marblehead aircraft factory (first manufacture of aircraft under license in the US).

Q: What else did Burgess do after the Plum Island flights?
A: The Burgess Company manufactured over a hundred aircraft of various designs up to the end of World War I. Among his claims to fame were:

• First aircraft of flying wing design (also Burgess-Dunne).
• First aircraft sold to the Canadian armed forces (Burgess-Dunne).
• First aircraft to both take off from and land on water.

Q: Q: Did Charles Lindbergh land at Plum Island?
A: There is no reason to believe he did. There is, however, a rumor that he flew into another airport in Newburyport, but this is completely undocumented.

Q: Did Lindbergh last leave the United States over Plum Island on his famous flight to Paris?
A: No. The source of this claim is an erroneous caption on a photograph in the Chicago Tribune shortly after the flight saying he left land over Plum Island, Mass. Lindbergh’s route is well known, and did not take him anywhere near Plum Island, MA. The likely explanation is that he flew over Plum Island, New York, off the tip of Long Island.

Q: Who was Johnnie Polando?
A: Polando was nationally famous as the holder of the long-distance flight record, together with Russell Boardman, for their 1931 non-stop New York to Istanbul flight. In May 1937, Polando began passenger service, airmail service, and pilot training flights at the Plum Island Airport.

Q: Who was Warren Frothingham?
A: Frothingham was Polando’s partner. Starting in 1937, they expanded airport facilities as business increased. In July 1937, a green light was added to the beacon, thus permitting all types of aircraft to land there. Three hangars, an office building, the asphalt runway, and a small building beside the beacon tower were built before World War II. The small building (the current airport office) was used for many years as a restaurant known as the Cockpit Café, named by a local girl in a May 1938 contest in return for flying lessons. Polando left in 1942, but Frothingham ran the airport up to the 1960s.