THROUGH
MOUNTAIN MISTS
Early Settlers of
Their
Descendants...Their Stories...Their Achievements
Lifting the
Mists of History on Their Way of Life
By: Ethelene Dyer Jones
Book cover design by Karen
Turnage Merrill
A delightful and beautiful book
has just come to me via its
author, Sylvia Dyer Turnage. This great,
great granddaughter of inventor Micajah Clark Dyer has long been
interested in
what this farmer-inventor accomplished back in the nineteenth century
as he
worked diligently to invent and improve, and yes, even fly what he
called,
appropriately, “An Apparatus for Navigating the Air.”
In our Dyer family, we had heard
stories of Clark Dyer and his flying machine.
Was this invention for real? Did
he really make a vehicle that would take to the air and fly? As Sylvia Dyer Turnage and I were growing up
in our home community of Choestoe, these tales of her great, great
grandfather
and my great, great uncle just would not die.
Too many people had heard the tales.
Two people, at least, in our acquaintance, my Uncle Herschel
Dyer and a
cousin, John Wimpey, had seen the fabulous machine.
And both of them were truthful men. They
would not tell a lie.
And so the legend stayed alive, passed
down from generation to generation. Many
had a share in perpetuating the legend, among whom were Watson Benjamin
Dyer
who wrote about it in his first edition of
“Dyer Family History” published in 1967, and his subsequent
edition in
1980.
In 1980, a great, great great grandson
of Clark Dyer, Kenneth Akins, did much research on the Dyer legend, and
found,
with the help of historian Robert Davis, that several credible people
whom they
interviewed were convinced that the story of Clark Dyer’s flying
machine was
more than legend, that the flying machine had indeed been invented.
Persistence often results in bringing
major rewards. Sylvia Dyer Turnage
herself, taken by the story of her ancestor’s exploits, wrote and
published in
1994 a book entitled The Legend of
Clark Dyer’s Flying Machine. In
the book, she told what she then knew of the story.
Included was a poem she entitled
“Ode to Clark Dyer,” which was
set to music and sung by her (and perhaps others) at Dyer family
reunions,
gatherings and anyplace an interest was shown in this nineteenth
century
farmer-inventor’s life story.
Finally the breakthrough came that
proved a remarkable boon and proof that the legend was indeed fact. In late 2004, two others of Clark Dyer’s
descendants,
great, great great grandsons Stephen and
Joey Dyer, brothers, found a patent online at the US Patent and
Copyright
Office, Patent No. 154,654, dated
Indeed it was! In addition to the
patent, the young men
found copies of newspaper articles from “The St. Louis Globe Democrat”
(July
31, 1875) and “The Eagle” (Gainesville, GA, July 31, 1875) that told of
M. C.
Dyer of Blairsville, who had “been studying the subject of air
navigation for
thirty years,” and was eager to construct the machine and “board the
ship and
commit himself to the wind.”
Then, with proof in hand, copies of
the patent, and a proposed resolution introduced to the Georgia
Legislature by
then representative Charles F. Jenkins of Blairsville, a fitting
memorial was
in order for the mountain genius whose work had predated the Wright
brothers. Georgia Highway 180 from US
Highway 129/19 to the Brasstown Bald Mountain Spur was named “The
Since then, the Clark Dyer Foundation
has been formed. His gravesite in
And in this newest book from author
Sylvia Dyer Turnage’s pen, the story from legend to reality, from
word-of-mouth
to printed proof, from theory to the actual patent, are collected for
us to
enjoy.
Sylvia’s immediate family all played a
vital role in the production of this lovely, “coffee table” quality
book. She, being the writer in her family,
wrote
the manuscript of the book. Her husband,
Billy Turnage, a photographer by hobby but also by expertise, made
exquisite
photographs of the history of bringing to light the real story of
Micajah Clark
Dyer. These are included in the book, in
full color. Her daughter, Karen Dyer
Merrill of California designed the book’s cover and assisted in the
proofreading and editorial production of the book.
Her son, Andrew Turnage, set up and maintains
the Micajah Clark Dyer website which any interested persons can access. He also helped to found the Micajah Clark
Dyer Foundation, the goals of which are listed in the book on pages
35-36. He also assisted with the
production of the
book. Yee Yee, Sylvia’s delightful daughter-in-law, and wife of Andrew,
who, by
carefully reading the description in
The book, authored by Sylvia Dyer
Turnage, poet, author, speaker, accountant (retired), and assisted by
her
immediate family, has been a labor of love in memory of that beloved
great,
great grandfather who saw the birds flying over the mountains of
Choestoe and
wondered, “Why can’t I, too, fly?”
Search out how you might purchase a
copy for yourself by checking at your local book store, online at micajahclarkdyer.org,
or contacting Sylvia at her own Turnage Publishing Co., Inc.
Congratulations to Sylvia and her
family for this addition to the corpus of county history, family
history, and
history in general. She uses this
appropriate quotation from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. on the back cover
of her
book: “Man’s mind, once stretched by a
new idea, never regains its original dimensions.” Micajah
Clark Dyer’s mind was indeed
“stretched by a new idea.” And look what
happened.
c2010 by
Ethelene Dyer
Jones; published
[Ethelene Dyer
Jones is a retired educator,
freelance writer, poet, and historian. She may be reached at
e-mail [email protected];
phone 478-453-8751; or mail 1708 Cedarwood Road, Milledgeville, GA
31061-2411.]
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