Early Aviation in Carter County

The Matthew B. Sellers Collection

     The Northeastern Kentucky Museum is proud to display five early experimental propellers from Mr. Seller's workshop.

  Matthew Bacon Sellers was born in Baltimore, Maryland on March 29, 1869.  He was the first of four children born to Matthew B. Sellers, Sr., and Angelina Leathers (Lewis) Sellers, who was descended from families native to Kenton and Carter Counties, Kentucky.

     Following his early education by tutors and at private schools, including work at Gottingen, Germany and Evreux, France, Sellers received his LL.B from Harvard Law School in 1892.  During 1893-94 he attended Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University and Drexel Institute in Philadelphia.  At these schools he studied chemistry, physics, and the mechanical arts.

     In 1888 his mother purchased property previously owned by her family in Carter County near Grahn.  The family lived part of the year at the farm, where Sellers built a laboratory to experiment with aerodynamics.  The family named the home Blakemore.  In the same year he constructed a balloon thirty feet in diameter with an ascensive force of 230 pounds.  It is said that he intended riding this into the air, but that his mother dissuaded him from doing so.  In 1897 he set up a miniature wind tunnel to test the air resistance of various shapes.  This was among the first such aerodynamic investigations undertaken in America.

By 1903, Sellers began to direct his full attention to aeronautical research and invention.  In that year he built a much larger wind tunnel three feet in diameter and fully twenty-five feet long, the most advanced of the day.  Here he tested wing and propeller designs.   The same year he built his first glider but was disappointed with its performance.

  On December 17, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright launched their heavier-than-air Flyer on a 12 second, 120 foot flight that changed the world.  Later that day on their fourth flight, they covered 852 feet in 59 seconds.  The age of heavier-than-air flight had begun.

     Sellers continued his research and writings in 1904-06 and in 1907 felt the need to put his findings to the test.  In that year he built several larger gliders of a four-wing (quadruplane) design and flew them successfully near his home. 

During 1908 he modified one of these quadruplanes by attaching a three-wheel chassis and fitting a small two-cylinder engine of French manufacture.  This powered machine was first flown for a short distance December 28, 1908 from a hillside near Blakemore.  Its undercarriage featured retractable wheels, the first time in history that such a device had been used.

  He further improved his aeroplane during the next several years, receiving patents on its mechanical innovations.

     Tragically on October 25, 1911, his assistant Lincoln Binion, from a local family, was killed instantly when struck by the aeroplanes propeller.  The Louisville Courier-Journal reported the accident:

          "Sellers had just started to make a flight when suddenly the machine darted  backward (the propeller) striking Benion on the head." 

     Sellers deeply grieved this tragedy and the passing of a valued friend and left Blakemore within a few days, returning only once for a brief visit in 1931.  The research which he had done on the aeroplane here was continued elsewhere, and he soon achieved considerable prominence as an authority on aeronautics.  He became the technical editor of America's leading aviation magazine, Aeronautics, and authored more than 30 articles on the subject.

     In 1912 Matthew Sellers was appointed by President Taft to the Aerodynamic Laboratory Commission and made recommendations to the President concerning the establishment of a national aeronautical research facility.  Such a laboratory was authorized in 1915 under the name National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.  In 1958 this agency was reorganized to become the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

In the publication Jane's 'All the World's Aircraft, 1913', Sellers was called "one of the few real scientific flying men in the U.S.A."

          "His aim is to fly successfully with the least possible horsepower.  For several years he has been making flights with . . . 5-6 horsepower engines.  The original machine with slight changes was still flying at the end of 1912 with only 5 horsepower BHP. Flying speed is 20 mph."

  In 1915 Sellers was appointed to the Naval Consulting Board.  In 1918 he married Ethel Clark and they had two sons-Matthew III and John.  He continued working and writing through the 1920's and became interested in the technology of radio.  He lost heavily in the stock market crash of 1929.  He died on April 5, 1932, at Ardsley-on-Hudson, a year after his last visit to Kentucky.

     The Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum honors the pioneering aeronautical work of Matthew B. Sellers with a display of his scientific journals, photographs, propellers, and related artifacts.