“Legend of Clark Dyer’s Remarkable Flying Machine” displayed at reunion

Standing: Dr. Joseph B. Turner, Charles H. Souther, and Rev. Keith Jones.
Seated: Dr. Eva Nell Wike, Ethelene D. Jones, Dr. Thomas N. Lumsden, and Sylvia D. Turnage

The 2008 annual Dyer-Souther Heritage Association Reunion, held July 19, 2008 at the Choestoe Baptist Church in Blairsville, Georgia, featured a display of books written by family members. Pictured above are family authors who were present at the reunion.

One of the books on display was The Legend of Clark Dyer’s Remarkable Flying Machine, written by Sylvia Dyer Turnage and published in 1994. This book tells the story of Clark’s invention as it was known up to that time. The book included everything the family knew about the invention and what they had heard about its outcome. By the time she finished the book, she said, “I had reconciled myself to the sad reality that my family and I would never have any documentary proof that my great-great-grandfather built and flew an airplane here in the North Georgia mountains almost 30 years before the Wright brothers flew theirs.”

Then, in late 2004, a great-great-great-grandson, Joey Dyer, was searching the internet when he managed to locate Clark’s patent in the U.S. Patent & Copyright Office. What a discovery!

The family was elated to finally see the patent, No. 154,654, which was issued to Clark on September 1, 1874, by the United States Patent & Trademark Office. The sophisticated drawings and detailed specifications of the flying machine that Clark had included in his patent application were most remarkable. The aeronautical principles he had addressed were way ahead of anything that others trying to invent a flying machine had yet envisioned. He included many innovative features: a power source, a rudder for steering, paddle wheels for acceleration and deceleration, jointed moving wings to increase or decrease altitude, and a wedge-shaped hull with inclined prow to reduce wind resistance.

In the year following discovery of his patent, two 1875 newspaper articles were discovered that reported Clark’s invention: the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, dated July 16, 1875, and The Eagle (Gainesville, Georgia), dated July 31, 1875. A comment in The Eagle article reveals the length of time Clark had been working on his invention and the depth of his conviction in his ability to get his craft airborne. The article says:

Mr. Dyer has been studying the subject of air navigation for thirty years…he himself has the most unshaken faith in [the machine’s] success, and is ready, as soon as the machine can be constructed, to board the ship and commit himself to the wind.

Very belatedly, recognition was given to Clark’s invention by erection of three highway signs in 2006 declaring State Highway 180 from the junction of U.S. Highway 19/129 to Brasstown Bald Mountain Spur the “Micajah Clark Dyer Parkway.” Now everyone who drives along this popular road gets the opportunity to recognize a pioneer aviator who had to wait 132 years for “his day” to come.

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