sitting at the controls of a Wright
Model B Flyer in Dayton, in April of 1912
If you lived in Marple on May 26, 1912, and you had even the slightest curiosity, you would have headed down the Pike to Manoa to see something you had never seen before—an airplane taking off and landing at Eagle Field, now Manoa Shopping Center.
Grover Cleveland Bergdoll, the 19-year-old son of a wealthy Philadelphia brewing family, put on a show that day, taking his Wright Brothers Model B Flyer up for seven flights, dazzling a crowd of several thousand people. On his last flight, he followed the Pike up to Newtown Square, turned north to Wayne, east to Ardmore following the tracks of the Main Line, and then circled back to Manoa.
Bergdoll was in the first class of pilots taught to fly by the Wright Brothers at their flying school in Dayton, Ohio. He then bought his plane from them and built a storage hangar on a flat parcel of land up the road from his family’s summer home in Broomall, which became Eagle Field. For the next several years, he attracted a crowd with his flying accomplishments, including the first flight made between Philadelphia and Atlantic City.
The Model B was the first airplane made in commercial production to be sold to the flying public. The plane was a two-seater with the pilot and a passenger sitting side by side on the leading edge of the lower wing. On his flights, he invited those brave enough to go up with him to join him on each flight. Whether a spectator or passenger, that was a day you would remember for the rest of your life!
Unfortunately for Bergdoll, those early days of flight were the best days of his life. When World War I broke out, America declared war against Germany. Bergdoll’s mother had immigrated to the U.S. from Germany and so like many German-Americans, her loyalties were divided. When her son was drafted, he failed to report and went into hiding. He had been a high-profile public figure, and so the draft authorities went to war against Grover. He fled the country but returned after the war to face criminal charges. He was jailed for about five years and then lived the rest of his days in Virginia. His airplane, the Wright Brothers Model B, lives on. It was donated to the Franklin Institute where it is now displayed in their Aviation Hall.
For more on the history of Marple, visit the Marple Historical Society website and Facebook page, and join the Society to keep up to date on coming events: www.MarpleHistoricalSociety.org.
