Montgomery, John J. (John Joseph), 1858-1911

Scope Note: John Joseph Montgomery was born February 15, 1858 in Yuba City, California, the son of Zachary and Ellen Evoy Montgomery. In 1864 he moved to Oakland California, where he is believed to have begun his study of birds' flight and wing structure. He entered Santa Clara College in 1874 then transferred to St. Ignatius College in San Francisco in 1875, where he earned his B.Sc. in 1879 and his M.Sc. in 1880. In 1893 Montgomery presented his paper "Soaring Flight" at the Aeronautical Congress' Conference on Aerial Navigation, in Chicago, having accomplished the first controlled flight of man in a heavier than air craft at Otay Mesa, around 1883 or 1884. In 1894 Montgomery began teaching mathematics at St. Joseph's College in Rohnnerville, but he returned to his family home in Oakland in 1895 and began living at Santa Clara College in 1896, where he was awarded his Ph.D. in 1901. While at Santa Clara he worked with James E. Leonard, flying three and four-foot wingspread model planes at Leonard's ranch, and with the Rev. Richard H. Bell, S.J. on improve-ments on the Marconi Wireless, while also teaching physics. In 1904 Montgomery trained Daniel Maloney to fly two full-scale planes that had been completed in 1903. The two presented several exhibitions in 1905, in which a plane was raised 500 to 4,000 feet by a hot air balloon, then cut free and maneuvered to the ground. The exhibitions stopped when Maloney was killed July 18, 1905. Shortly after Maloney's death Montgomery received patent No. 831,173 "For Improvement in Aeroplanes." This was to be the basis of a 1921 suit brought by Montgomery's widow, Regina Cleary Montgomery, and other family members. In 1909 Montgomery patented an alternating current rectifier which he sold to a San Francisco company. He married Regina Cleary on June 30, 1910. Montgomery continued his experimental flights. In the Fall of 1911, during a two week period of work with his mechanics Cornelius Reinhardt and Joseph Vierra at Evergreen, he made approximately 55 successful flights. On October 31, 1911, during a flight, he was struck by a bolt loosened from the aeroplane and was killed.

Found in 1 Collection or Record: