WALTER ELLSWORTH. JOHNSON 1889-1961

1962

 

DISCOVERED---MORE EARLY BIRDS      CLAIR F. HORTON, now superintendent of repairs at the Air Corps repair depot in San Antonio, began at Hammondsport in 1908 and eventually soloed in a Curtiss seaplane, June 15, 1914, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Then followed long journeys about the country in exhibitions. The Philadelphia Inquirer, of May 13, 1916, tells of the presence of Admiral Peary, the mayor and other prominent lights at the opening of the Philadelphia Aviation School at Essington, and shows the instructors as Clair F. Horton, Earl Beers, Jack Tweed and Walter E. Johnson, Jr. from CHIRP - JULY, 1940 - DEARBORN MICH. NUMBER 27 courtesy of Steve Remington - CollectAir

 

Walter Ellsworth Johnson, 72, died in a Philadelphia hospital.      Mr. Johnson held the American Duration Record for 1912 for pilot and passenger --- 3 hours and 51 minutes. During World War I he delivered planes to the Russian government for the Curtiss Co.      He was a first lieutenant in the aviation branch of the Signal Corps in San Antonio, Texas, where he was in charge of the instruction school.      He later became an officer of the Camden Trust Co.      In 1912 he was married to the former Florence Scrafford of Bath. He is survived by three children, Walter Jr, of Texas; Robert S. of Haddenfield, N. J.; and Elizabeth E. Harrison of Philadelphia; and four grandchildren. From The Early Birds of Aviation CHIRP November 1961, Number 67

 

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