Frederick Erastus Humphreys was one of the original three military pilots trained by the Wright brothers and the first to fly solo.
Biography
Frederick was born on September 16, 1883 in Summit, New Jersey, the only son of Jay Humphreys and Fannie Brush. He attended the Pennsylvania Military College, and won an appointment from New York to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. He was made Cadet Captain, he lettered in fencing, and was the top eighth student of seventy-eight in the West Point Class of 1906. After graduation and commissioning, he was assigned to the Army Corps of Engineers and sent to Fort Riley, Kansas where he worked in bridge construction. 2nd Lt. Humphreys deployed to Cuba during the Pacification Expedition, and a year later, returned to attend the Engineer Officer Basic Course. Humphreys volunteered for assignment to the Aeronautical Division, U.S. Signal Corps and was chosen to replace Benjamin Foulois in pilot training by the Wright brothers. On October 26, 1909, after three hours of instruction by Wilbur Wright, he became the first Army aviator to solo in a heavier-than-air craft, and thus the first pilot of the first progenitor of the United States Air Force. The Army's sole military airplane crashed on November 5, 1909, after which Humphreys returned to the Corps of Engineers. In 1910, Humphreys resigned his commission to attend to his father's business, the Humphreys Homeopathic Medicine Company, founded by his grandfather in 1853. Thereafter he served as an officer of the company, the last twelve years of his life as its president.
National Guard
In June 1915, Humphreys joined the New York National Guard's 22d Engineers Regiment as a First Lieutenant. He was called up with his regiment for Mexican Border service after Pancho Villa's raids in 1916, he served as an aide to Major General John F. O'Ryan, Commanding General of the New York Division. Shortly after his return to New York, the regiment was inducted into federal service for World War I. After initial service with his regiment at the divisional training post at Spartanburg, South Carolina, he was recalled and was transferred to the Air Service in January 1918. After flight training at Rockwell Field in San Diego, California he was assigned to the first class of the School of Military Aeronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for advanced technical training. He remained at MIT as head of the school's Department of Practical Aircraft Design, and then was made school commander. At about the time of the Armistice, he was assigned to the newly founded Technical Section, Engineering Division, at McCook Field, in Dayton, Ohio, remaining there until he was demobilized in February 1919. He returned to New York, and was appointed Colonel of the 102nd Army Engineers, a position he had until his retirement due to ill health on July 11, 1939. At the time he was the senior Colonel of New York. He was advanced to Brigadier General on the State Retired List.
