Eddy, William Abner

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• Reference Number: 5183

Notes:

Eddy, William Abner, inventor, was born in New York city, Jan. 28, 1850; son of the Rev. Dr. Herman J. and Amanda (Doubleday) Eddy; grandson of Seth and Milicent (Huggins) Eddy, and of Ulysses F. and Hester (Donnelly) Doubleday; and a descendant from John Alden of the Mayflower, and from Samuel Eddy, who arrived in America in 1630. He pursued a preparatory course in Chicago university, 1868-69, and then engaged in business in Syracuse, N.Y., devoting his leisure to reading, giving preference to books relating to the natural sciences. He removed to New York in 1873, where he was employed in the export business and continued his scientific investigations. He joined the New York press club in 1886 and became a contributor to the daily journals. He was married in 1887, to Cynthia S. Huggins. He began his experiments in kite-flying as a boy, and connected with the amusement a study of meteorological phenomena, in which science he became an expert. He was appointed by the U.S. signal service as voluntary observer to investigate the phenomena attending tornadoes in 1884, and was continued in that branch of service. His first experiments made public were those of temperature taken at different altitudes, by means of kites, Feb. 4, 1891; obtaining a spark from a kite wire, Oct. 8, 1892; first mile of altitude, Nov. 7, 1893; the first kite flown in rain and penetrating low running rain [p.390] clouds, Nov. 4, 1893; the first mid-air kite photograph in' the western hemisphere, May 30, 1895; first in New York, Sept. 25, 1895; first in Boston, Aug. 26, 1896; first in Philadelphia, May 15, 1897; first in Washington, D.C., Sept. 8, 1897; first kite telephone message, Dec. 5, 1896; first simultaneous mid-air kite, double photograph, June 6, 1897; first aerial camera-obscura, Aug. 15, 1897; first kite photograph of Reading, Pa., June 8, 1898; first of Statue of Liberty, New York harbor, Oct. 27, 1898; first simultaneous kite-temperature taken at New York and Bayonne, N.J., April 9, 1898, with Henry L. Allen operating the kites at Bayonne; first kite sustained U.S. flag illumined by colored fire attached to kite cable near the flag, April 30, 1898, and first kite electric test of air surrounding statue of Liberty, New York harbor, Nov. 1, 1898. In 1898 he had made seven inventions in the line of his experiments. In June, 1898, he succeeded in taking an excellent photograph of a burning building from an elevation of five hundred feet directly over the conflagration. This demonstrated the use of kite photography in war to determine the enemy's position or strength. On June 17, 1898, he produced an artificial "shooting star" by elevating a lantern with a kite 900 feet, and then, by a jar, detaching the lantern, letting it slide along the line down to the earth. He also displayed colored lights at a great height and originated a code of signals for use at sea or on the battle-field. In August, 1899, in a series of experiments at Stamford, Conn., he demonstrated that the minimum of electric tension was to be found within a radius of half a mile of a mountain peak.

William married Huggins, Cynthia Sophia on 21 Apr 1887 in Jersey City, New Jersey. Cynthia (daughter of Huggins, Augustus Zadok and Wood, Cynthia Miller) was born on 6 Dec 1856 in New York City, New York; died on 16 Nov 1922 in Bayonne, New Jersey. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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• Reference Number: 7559

Family/Spouse: Fleming, Guy. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]