News from the Historical Society
TALES FROM EPPING’S PAST
REACHING FOR STARS 
Back in July, 1925, when Calvin Coolidge was in the White House and Dan Harvey was almost five years old here on Red Oak Hill, just seeing an airplane flying around Epping was a really rare event. So one can only imagine the excitement that summer day, as a massive object passed over our town. Measuring almost two football fields long and nearly 80 feet around, it was the world famous airship “Shenandoah” on a flight to Bar Harbor from her home port of Lakehurst, New Jersey. She had been built there and christened “Shenandoah,” an American Indian term meaning “Daughter of the Stars.” She was the first rigid helium inflated airship in history and the first to cross North America, thus winning the hearts of Americans and aviation leaders everywhere. When the Shenandoah went down in a squall line over Ohio in September of that same year, it marked the world’s greatest aviation disaster up to that time.
1925 was also the year that a rough-necked Lithuanian from Binghamton, New York married a girl from Epping, New Hampshire. He came here to live on Pleasant Street and swiftly became one of our town’s more colorful citizens. Jack Sharkey was a Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the World and had some knockout tales of his own to tell. Here’s one of them:
On the night of May 21, 1927, New York’s Yankee Stadium was jammed with boxing fans all geared up for the elimination match between Jack and his longtime rival Jimmy Maloney. As the fighters stood in their corners waiting for the starting bell, the ring announcer suddenly asked everyone to observe a moment of prayer. “It got so quiet you could hear a pin drop.” Jack recalled years later. That was the night when 30,000 people in Yankee Stadium got to their feet and bowed their heads as one for the safe landing of a young American pilot who at that very moment was flying alone across the vast Atlantic Ocean on his way to France.
Six other men had died trying, but Charles Lindbergh, an Air Mail pilot and Army Reserve Officer, was determined to win the $25,000 prize for the first nonstop flight between New York and Paris, a distance of over 3,600 miles, in his single-engine plane named the Spirit of St. Louis. To reduce the plane’s weight because of the extra fuel tanks, he had decided to fly without a radio, gas gauge, night-flying lights, navigation equipment, a co-pilot or even a parachute. With only a magnetic compass, airspeed, luck, prayers and five sandwiches, he flew 34 hours straight, a good part of it through snow and sleet. He landed safely through a foggy night on a Paris airfield to be met by the thunderous welcome of thousands of wildly cheering French. He was named “Lucky Lindy” and became a world famous hero. President Coolidge presented him with both the Distinguished Flying Cross and our highest military decoration, the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Dan Harvey was about seven years old here in Epping when Lindy landed in Paris. His own interest in “those flying machines” had begun when one flew by his house on Red Oak Hill. By the time he was 18 years old, his father was still grumbling that anybody’s life in a plane depended “only on a darn fuel tank.” Nonetheless, two dollars meant fifteen minutes of flying lessons in Haverhill and Dan drove there for them in his old Buick with a door missing. He was his father’s only son, the only boy in an old farming family. To keep him happy and on the farm his father bought him a Piper Cub and a potato planting machine.
Then one cold February night in 1956, Dan was flying solo 3,000 feet above Boston Harbor and ran out of fuel. He managed to land safely on deserted Outer Brewster Island and built a fire to keep himself warm and attract attention to his plight. He found some crackers in his pocket and made a meal of them. Then he hunkered down for the night and woke up next morning to loud shouts of “Anybody there?!!” A U.S. Coast Guard boat had come to the rescue of Epping’s “Flying Farmer.” When he finally landed his plane here back home, he was welcomed by his much relieved family and friends from all over town. People affectionately began calling him “Lindy“ to which he replied “No heroics here. Any fool can run out of gas.”
And so wherever life may take us, may we always land safely and never run out of fuel, matches - or crackers.
This is ninth in a series of Epping historical articles for this newsletter.
Text/Research: Madelyn Williamson. Artist: Analesa Harvey
Historical Society news
Everyone at the Epping Historical Society sends greetings and best wishes for the New Year. The Society expects that 2012 will be an eventful year, with many projects and programs on the horizon. Mark your calendar now for April 26th - the date of the next program at the Historical Society. Details will follow soon.
December 31st marks the end of the Society’s fiscal year. Dues for 2012 will be due starting January 1st. Members should keep an eye open for the next edition of the Society newsletter, which will reach your mailbox later in January, for details about membership renewal and upcoming Society activities.
The Epping Historical Society Board recently completed a project to solidify the Society's status as a non-profit organization. Board members also completed several in-house maintenance projects, including the removal of a metal desk that occupied a great deal of floor space. Work continues on many other Society initiatives.
Thanks to everyone who has supported the Society in the past year. Please visit us on Mondays from 9:00-12:00 at our 11 Water Street building.
THE CIVIL WAR ROUNDTABLE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
Submitted by Dan Bennis
Hello from the CWRTNH. We will be starting again in January, 2012, having our meetings at the Epping Town Hall.
On January 20th, we have Dr. Rick Shubart of Phillips Exeter Academy, presenting his program "LINCOLN'S VISIT TO EXETER 1860.”
On February 17th, our speaker will be Mr. Guntis Goncarous (Author/Historian), presenting his program "HUNLEY" (this was the Confederate Navy's submarine).
On March 16th, our speaker will be Mr. Dave Nelson, presenting his program "NH FLAG PRESERVATION" (battle flags from NH Regiments in the Civil War).
All three programs are on the third Friday of the month at the Epping Town Hall in the main floor meeting room. Meetings start at 7:15 pm and are televised live on Epping channel 22. Doors open at 6:30 pm.
2012 Meeting Schedule
- January 20th
- February 17th
- March 16th
- April 13th (2nd Friday)
- May 18th
- June 15th
Feel free to log onto our website http://www.crwt-nh.org to check our schedule and find out more about the CWRT-NH. If you choose TO JOIN, great! - We like to increase our membership and all are welcome to be part of our group. Thank you for your interest in advance.
