Illustration by Britt Spencer
The answer is probably yes, but I hope it’s no. Allow me to explain. On March 1, 1912, U.S. Army Captain Albert Berry took off from Kinloch Field aboard a primitive Benoist biplane. As it neared Jefferson Barracks, he turned to pilot Tony Jannus (who would later become the first commercial airline pilot), pointed down at an insane asylum, and said, “That’s where we both belong.” With the plane 1,500 feet above the ground, Berry climbed out of his seat and onto a landing-wheel axle fashioned into an improvised trapeze bar. He attached a parachute to a harness he was wearing. Then he jumped.
For the first 500 feet or so, he fell like a rock, the parachute trailing behind him like a snake. Suddenly it opened, and, as a newspaper put it, “the rapidity of the descent was checked, and amid cheers, the first aviator to make such an attempt lightly reached the ground.” Upon his landing, soldiers carried Berry on their shoulders to receive kudos from their commanding officer. When asked whether he would like to repeat the feat, Berry replied, “Never again! I believe I turned five somersaults on my way down… I was not prepared for the violent sensation that I felt when I broke away from the aeroplane.” He jumped again nine days later, on March 10.
Berry’s story is inspiring, with good quotes. And it’s easily verifiable—hundreds of military men witnessed the achievement. Major publications, both then and now, celebrated his leap as the first of its kind. But there’s another man with a claim to that title. Grant Morton was a thrill-seeker, an amateur adventurer, an underdog, and a man after this Sage’s own heart. Were he alive today, he’d be a famous daredevil with his own TV show. In the early 1900s, everyone just thought he was crazy. Morton enjoyed jumping out of hot air balloons. Rather than doing so over open fields—what fun would that be?—the Californian made his dives over Venice Beach, where he risked blowing out to sea or being caught in electrical wires. He flirted with disaster so often, newspapers took to predicting his death. A 1905 article declared, “Grant Morton, parachute jumper, was probably fatally injured yesterday.” Three years later, another paper wrote, “Morton, the Venice balloonist, now lies dying in the Santa Monica Bay Hospital… Yesterday his parachute threw him against a pole near the old alligator place.” He survived both incidents, and in either 1911 (before Berry) or late March 1912 (after Berry), he parachuted from a Wright Model B airplane—and landed on power lines.
If you enjoy swelling with St. Louis pride, support Berry’s claim. If you prefer a more outrageous story, join me in stumping for Morton.
St. Louis Feats in Flight
1859: John Wise flies a hot air balloon from St. Louis to Niagara Falls, setting a record for the longest flight.
1904: The first controlled flight of a dirigible takes place at the World’s Fair in St. Louis.
1910: Teddy Roosevelt becomes the first president to fly in an airplane when he takes a ride over Kinloch Field.
1912: Berry’s leap
1927: Charles Lindbergh makes his historic flight across the Atlantic in the Spirit of St. Louis.
