The first American woman to receive a pilot's license was Michigan's own Harriet Quimby from Manistee County.

William & Ursula Quimby moved to Bear Lake (now Arcadia Township) in 1867. In 1874, they bought this property; the following year Ursula gave birth to Harriet.

In 1887 when Harriet was in her early teens, her family packed up and moved to California. She became a writer, cranking out travel articles and screenplays, some of which were made into films by silent movie director D.W. Griffith. By 1911, she had become interested in aviation and received her pilot's license on August 1. Not only was she the first American woman to receive a pilot's license, but also the first woman to fly across the English Channel.

Harriet was 37 years old when she died on July 1, 1912; the aircraft she was flying "unexpectedly pitched forward for reasons still unknown". She and a passenger were ejected from their seats and, with no parachutes (as they were still in the experimental stage), plunged to their deaths. She was buried in New York. The house where Harriet spent her childhood has surprisingly not been renovated or modernized. Its original rustic appearance is thankfully being preserved.

I’ve written about this before – it looks like others lived here sometime in the last number of decades and left a bunch of stuff behind.

If you care to visit, it's on Erdman Road, between Nelson Rd. & Norconk Rd.

THE HARRIET QUIMBY HOUSE

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Edgar Bergen and the Town of Decatur

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HARRIET QUIMBY

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