Air and Water

Henry Brand, a 51-year-old grocer from Hobart, went on a little vacation to Ohio in August 1919. He returned with a story to tell, and the Hobart News gave him credit for a "first":



The Gazette said, more moderately, that Henry "perhaps" was "the first or among the first Hobartites to fly through space."

It is a matter of interpretation. We know that George Severance, Jr. had learned to fly airplanes for the military some two years earlier, and had even survived a crash. However, though the Hobart newspapers seemed to treat George Jr. as a hometown hero, he was a Ross Township farm boy, technically not a Hobartite.

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And now we go from up in the air to down in the ground, as a town board meeting in late July resulted in a contract for some old friends of ours:

Supt.* reported a bid of $294 by Lee & Rhodes for furnishing all labor and tools in laying the Main street water extension from 6th street south about 600 feet, under and across the "J" tracks to 7th street. The town will furnish all material. The contract was let to Lee & Rhodes.

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"Supt." probably refers to Robert Wheaton, superintendent of Hobart's light and water plant.


Sources:
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Henry Brand Takes Air Trip in Bombing Plane at Dayton, O." Hobart News 7 Aug. 1919.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 8 Aug. 1919.
♦ "Town Board Doings." Hobart Gazette 1 Aug. 1919.