'Apparatus for Navigating the Air' Micajah Clark Dyer

My January 4, 2004 column for “Through Mountain Mists” told of Micajah Clark Dyer and his remarkable flying machine that predated the Wright Brothers’ flight at Kitty Hawk, NC by several years. I thought that column would wrap up what I know of legend and fact about this Choestoe, Union County, Georgia inventor who lived from July 23, 1822 through January 26, 1891.

However, a remarkable development has occurred to add new light on Mr. Dyer’s invention and to authenticate what had only been passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation about the nineteenth century genius who watched birds fly and mused (to quote a line from a popular song), “Why, then oh why can’t I?”

Straightaway I have these to thank for discovering the registered patent in the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office and allowing me access to a copy. First, Jimmy Powell, cartoonist of note, went on the Google search engine, typing “Micajah Dyer Patent.” He followed the links to the U. S. Patent office. Jimmy is tied to Micajah Clark Dyer by marriage. His wife, Roxanne Dyer Powell, is the daughter of Wayne Dyer who goes directly back to her great, great, great grandfather Micajah Clark through Johnny, Samuel, Jasper Washington, first born of Micajah Clark Dyer. Then Jimmy Powell told a great, great granddaughter of Clark Dyer, Sylvia Dyer Turnage, who herself went online, and after some difficulty found and paid the cost for a printable copy. This was the long-missing link to prove that Micajah Clark Dyer did, indeed, get his machine far enough along to secure a patent on it. I thank them also for giving me permission to write another column about the inventor and his patent.

And speaking of patents, several of us who have written about his flying machine have noted that the patent application was evidently lost because there seemed to be no documents in Dyer’s papers to show that he received a patent. It was believed by family members that the patent was lost in transit between Choestoe and Washington, DC.

The fact that it was not lost, and that proof of the patent came into the hands of his descendants 130 years later are wonderful authentications of this man’s outstanding work. In fact, September is a good month to be writing about the title he gave to his patent, “Apparatus for Navigating the Air,” for the patent was granted on September 1, 1874, 130 years ago this month. His descendants are elated to learn that drawings of the “apparatus” were a part of the patent, together with extensive written descriptions of the lettered and numbered parts of the drawings.

Usually a model of the machine for which the inventor was applying for a patent accompanied the drawings and the official application. So far, the model has not been discovered at the patent office, but it may have been burned in the fire that devastated parts of the building in Washington in the early twentieth century.

Witnesses at Choestoe to Micajah Dyer’s illustrated and written document were Francis M. Swain (a neighbor) and M. C. Dyer, Jr. (the “other” Micajah Clark Dyer who, to distinguish the two, signed Jr. after his name. He was an uncle to the inventor Micajah Clark Dyer, but they were reared as brothers by Elisha Dyer, Jr., grandfather of Micajah). The document was dated February 16, 1874. It was filed in the patent office on June 10, 1874, and was approved there on September 1, 1874. Official signatures on the front of the document were D. G. Stuart and Leo Van Kiswick, evidently of the patent office. Micajah Dyer’s signature is affixed as inventor. The name of the attorney for the inventor is somewhat difficult to decipher: was he P. Harney or P. Hanney?

The beginning of the written description leads one to believe that there could have been prior applications; certainly prior attempts at an “Apparatus for Navigating the Air.” His opening statement reads:

Be it known that I, Micajah Dyer, of Blairsville, in the county of Union and State of Georgia, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Apparatus for Navigating the Air; and I do declare the following to be a full, clear and exact description of the invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it pertains to make and use it, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, which form part of this specification…

In the written account are minute details giving specifications for building the frame, the wings, the large balloon, the rotating paddle wheels, shafts, cranks, connecting rods—no part seems to have been omitted from his description of the apparatus which he so painstakingly thought through, drew and, from testimony of several who saw it, built in his workshop. The description is far too technical and long to include in this account.

No date is given for the “trial run” Micajah Clark Dyer gave his ‘Apparatus for Navigating the Air” on the runway he built to launch it on his property at Choestoe underneath the shadow of Rattlesnake Mountain. The fact that he did so is not a part of the patent but by word passed from generation to generation by people of integrity and honesty.

His great, great granddaughter, Sylvia Dyer Turnage, said: “People said he continued to work on perfecting the machine until his death on January 26, 1891 at age 68. Since the patent we’ve found was registered on September 1, 1874, I believe he had a later and more advanced design in those 17 years.”

I have not authenticated this with another great, great grandson of the inventor, Larry Dyer, but word has it that he is constructing a replica of Micajah Clark Dyer’s machine. Larry, if you read this, and if, indeed you are working on reproducing the “Apparatus for Navigating the Air,” please make a big day of its launch in the field near Rattlesnake Mountain and invite us all to the event. You and we owe this debt of gratitude to a genius of the mountains, one Micajah Clark Dyer.

c2004 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published September 16, 2004 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Logan Turnpike

If you want to travel the Logan Turnpike today, you will have to walk over portions of it or use a two-wheeled vehicle. The present-day Richard Russell Scenic Highway basically is cut through the northern roadbed of the turnpike. At Tesnatee Gap, the Logan Turnpike led from Union County across the mountain into White County. If you access it from the south, Kellam Valley Road north of Cleveland, Georgia will lead you northward to the old turnpike. It was first known as the Union Turnpike.

It was my privilege in 1992, while the venerable Charles Roscoe Collins, better known to family and friends as “Ros,” was still able to travel and give his historical accounts, to spend a day with him and have him personally give me a tour of the Old Logan Turnpike. His knowledge and memories provided a colorful roadmap to places and times in our history which have long since vanished.

“I rode the turnpike many times with my father, James J. Collins, in our two-horse wagon,” Collins remembered. As a lad, his major job was braking the wagon on the steep inclines. He told of cutting blocks of wood to use as “scotches” for the wheels. One time, he cut pine saplings and tied them behind the wagon to impede speed on the steep grades. In the winter, he also traveled ahead of the wagon and broke ice in the streams so the horses could cross.

When he was about seventeen, his father allowed him to take the wagon and its precious cargo on the Logan Turnpike to Gainesville to market. Collins felt that he had indeed “arrived,” being entrusted with the wagoner’s job without adult supervision. His father had a country store and the cargo for the trip to Gainesville included live chickens, farm produce, chestnuts and chinquapins in season, and cured animal pelts. These were items the country folk had brought to the Collins store to trade for “store-bought” items. Likewise, in Gainesville, Ros Collins bartered what he had hauled from Choestoe at the wholesale houses for coffee, sugar, cloth, shoes and other items which his father would sell in their store. Barter was the name of the game and adventure was par for the course. The round trip on these trading ventures took five days.

In tracing the history of the turnpike, this notation was found in the “Digest of Laws for the State of Georgia” for 1821: “John Lyon, Joel Dickerson and Company shall hereafter be a body corporate by the name and style of the Union Turnpike Company, for the purpose of constructing a turnpike road from Loudsville in Habersham County, through the Tesnatee Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains, by way of Blairsville to some eligible point on the northern boundary of this state in a direction toward the Tellico Plains in the state of Tennessee.”

Specifications called for the turnpike to be twenty feet wide with a causeway of twelve feet. No railroad or other road or canal could be built within ten miles of the turnpike for fifteen years.

Since, in 1821, Indians were still in the area, it is reasonable to assume that the turnpike followed an Indian trail. The Union Turnpike was finished the same year it was chartered. A companion road, the Old Unicoi Turnpike to the east, paralleled the Union Turnpike. Unicoi was chartered in 1813 and led from North Carolina across Unicoi Gap, through the Nacoochee Valley and into present-day Clarkesville. Clearing for the Unicoi Turnpike began in 1812.

These two roads, the Union and the Unicoi, were used by early settlers arriving in the area. Once settled, the pioneers made good use of the roads as trade routes.

The Union Turnpike became the Logan Turnpike because of the Logan family. Francis Logan migrated from Rutherford County, NC, traveling over the Unicoi Turnpike. He settled on March 10, 1822 in Nacoochee Valley. His land grant was north of Cleveland in the Loudsville Community. He married Hulda Powell on August 12, 1825.

Certain events have a way of setting off a chain reaction. In 1828 one of Francis Logan’s slaves found a gold nugget along Duke’s Creek with a weight of more than three ounces. This set off the famous North Georgia Gold Rush. More gold was found along the Chattahoochee River, at Hamby’s Ford, at Bean Creek and at Black Branch. Soon thousands of gold-hungry prospectors were digging for the precious metal. When found (and they did find gold in them hills), the ore had to be taken to the nearest mint, Bechtler’s, in Rutherford County, North Carolina. Both the Unicoi and the Union Turnpikes were used to transport the gold northward to the mint. Later, as the gold rush escalated, a U. S. Mint was established at Dahlonega, Georgia.

Francis Logan had a son named Major Willis Logan. He had extensive land holdings south of the mountains in western White County. Records show that Major Logan purchased all rights to the Union Turnpike for $3,000. The road then took the name Logan after the man who bought it. He had a charter and operated the road for thirty years. Members of his family continued to operate it until Neel Gap opened up in 1925 with US Highway 129 and the Logan Turnpike was no longer needed.

Logan Turnpike was seven and one-half miles over the mountain, from Loudsville in White County, northward across Tesnatee Gap, by Ponder Post Office and on into Choestoe where it connected with the old Union Turnpike. Stagecoaches traveled from Augusta, Georgia to Tennessee. Major Logan operated a stagecoach inn that took in overnight boarders and offered meals. Tolls were charged. The tollgate was near Logan’s Inn.
[Next week: More on the Logan Turnpike.]

c2004 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Feb. 5, 2004 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.