Flying Off Rattlesnake Mountain: The Amazing Story of Pioneer Inventor-Aviator, Micajah Clark Dyer

This is a true story, based on life as it was lived by the North Georgia pioneers who came into the mountainous area in 1833 to a land that had long been occupied by the Cherokee and Creek Indians. It follows the life of Micajah Clark Dyer (1821-1891) and how he came to have a remarkable theory about controlled flight in an aircraft--the name "airplane" had not yet been coined. He kept his flying machine secured in his shop away from prying eyes.The story tells of the roadblocks he encountered as he toiled to bring his vision to fulfillment, and the ridicule he suffered from his neighbors because they could not understand him and his passion for something they considered to be impossible and of no worth to anyone.There were no cameras or newspapers in this isolated area in those years, and Clark Dyer's story has survived because of his family's love shown through their taking great care to pass on the account of his accomplishments through the stories they told to succeeding generations. The facts presented herein are based on information gleaned from every available source--old newspapers, census reports, family recollections, and historical records, some copies of which are included in back of this book, including the drawings from Patent No. 154,654 issued to him on Sept. 1, 1874.The year after Clark Dyer's death in 1891, his widow sold the flying machine, the patent and all records. No documentation has been located of the name of the purchaser, so apparently no transfer of ownership was filed with the U.S. Patent Office. Indeed, there would have been no necessity for recording a transfer on the Patent records if the use they were to make of the machine, its drawings and specifications was to assist them in how to complete a machine they themselves were building. The generations coming after Clark's children had never seen any documents about the flying machine until the U.S. Patent Office began uploading old patents at their website around 2004, when two great-great-great-grandsons of Clark were able to find the patent. It is an amazing document that reveals why the name he was often known by in his community was "genius." It is certainly amazing that a backwoods man in the mid-1800s with only a seventh-grade education could have envisioned how an aircraft could be built with the mechanics a pilot could use to control a machine in flight.Dyer's invention came at a time when men all over the world were seeking to create a way to control flight. Although Dyer's model was a primitive one, it worked. And if it could have been discovered by a good engineer in those days, we would not have had to wait almost 30 years more before we were able to see the Wright brothers sail through the air and gain them the title of "First in Flight."