Harvey Mummert

HARVEY CLYDE MUMMERT
The Instructor

May 1938
In Bath's Airmail Pickup Flight

LESLIE COOPER Bath--Walter Longwell, postmaster, announces an official air mail pickup flight as a feature of National Air Mail Week. Volunteer pilots, Clifford VanGelder, owner of the plane, and Leslie Cooper as co-pilot will fly from Bath to Rochester with all mail deposited at Bath postoffice before 10:30 a. m. Thursday, May 19. Both Mr.

CLIFFORD VANGELDER VanGelder and Mr. Cooper are pupils of Harvey Mummert of Mercury Aircrafts, Hammondsport. Mr. Cooper is a member of Bath postoffice staff.
Stamp collectotrs who desire letters included in this first official local air mail flight should address the local postmaster.

Contributed by Gretchen Van Gelder Casey, 8-18-09

Bath's First Air
Mail Flight Made
Thursday Morning
May 13, 1938

     The first air mail ever taken from Bath by plane left the Bath Post Office yesterday (Thursday) morning, was flown to Richester and there was transferred to an American Airline ship on a regular air mail flight.
     The Bath plane, a Taylor Cub light monoplane owned and piloted by Clifford Van Gelder with Leslie Cooper of the Bath Post Office staff, also a licensed pilot, as co-pilot, took off from Mercury Field in Pleasant Valley at 11:05 a. m. and, delayed by headwinds, landed at the Rochester airport at 11:50 a. m.
     The plane carried nearly 1,000 pieces of mail, largely posted by philatelists. each cover bore a special chachet commemorating the flight and many were signed by Postmaster Waller Longwell and the pilots. The flight wsa made in connection with the nationwide observance of National Air Mail Week, May 15 to 21

Unidentified Newsclipping
Contributed by Gretchen Van Gelder Casey, 8-18-09

May 1938
Scenes at Bath, Hammondsport, During Air Mail Week Flights

FROM LEFT: Walter Longwell,, Bath postmaster; Clayton Hand, Bath postoffice staff, Leslie Cooper of Bath postoffice, pilot; Clifford Van Gelder, Bath owner of plane and pilot. Start was scene of Curtiss flight in 1908

HERE Postmaster Walter Longwell of Bath hands mail sack to Pilots Cooper and Ven Gelder in plane. More than 1,500 pieces of air mail were flown to Rochester taking 40 minutes time.

AT HAMMONDSPORT John Richards, postmaster, hands up bag with 4,000 pieces of air mail to Pilot Harvey Mummert. Both planes took off from Curtiss Field at Pleasant Valley

Contributed by Gretchen Van Gelder Casey, 8-18-09

Clifford Van Gelder - circa 1928 “It is quite likely that this is the Mercury Chic that Harvey Mummert used for training and then flew the mail in during the May 1938 Airmail Week. That would place your photo in the 1930s. That Mercury Chic was stored (no longer flight-worthy) in the hangar at the old location and did not move to the Kolo location” per Al Brueckmann, November, 2009”
Contributed by Gretchen Van Gelder Casey, 8-18-09

Clifford Van Gelder
Contributed by Gretchen Van Gelder Casey, 8-18-09

Clifford Van Gelder - 1957 Here is my Dad in 1957 standing by his beloved Stinson in which he died. He died of a heart attack in 1958 and a passenger who had never landed a plane before, landed it safely. That gentleman just died early this year – Joseph Meade.
Contributed by Gretchen Van Gelder Casey, 8-18-09

Clifford Van Gelder
"There is a beautiful display at the Curtiss Museum
and here is a part of it…..Gretchen"
Contributed by Gretchen Van Gelder Casey, 9-24-09

Back