Fate or Flight

Research by E.M. Gillum M.D.

A death announcement appearing in a rural Indiana newspaper in 1905 is hardly expected to be of much interest in 2003. However there is a message in the obituary of hope and forward thinking. It says he invented an aero plane and was involved with the Wright Brothers. Later they were reported to have been pallbearers at his death.

Albert was one of six children born to Isaac Rupel and Martha Martha Chamness.

There were six children four sons and two daughters. Isaac was German Methodist, Republican and anti-slavery. Martha was United Brethren and as such the children were raised in that church. They were married in 1875 and went into debt for $1000 at 10% interest to buy 38 acres of partially cleared farm land in Jackson Township, in Jay County Indiana. The County seat was and still is Portland Indiana seven miles away. (home of the Museum of the Soldier). The Rupel's first job was to clear the remaining ground to make it into a grain farm, but Isaac became interested in good live stock, so soon was raising blooded cows, horses, pigs and sheep. He was a successful farmer but in the 1880’s the Trenton Formation was discovered nearby; it produced natural gas and oil. Eventually the farm had 13 gas wells. By 1899 they owned 250 acres of ground and had a fine home with well tended fields and fences. To announce to the world that they were successful, a round barn was constructed so that others would know they were people to be recognized.

With the discovery of natural gas the economy of the whole area took on a new role – manufacturing. Metal working and the glass industry came in due to the abundance of natural gas. Eventually the gas played out but the industry stayed. The Ball Brothers glass factory in Muncie Indiana the manufacturer of Ball Glass Fruit Jars is famous world wide. Invention was in the air as the invention of the automobile by Elwood Hayes happened only seven miles from the Rupels. Elwood had an intense interest in science and attended college in the east. Upon his return to Jay County he was hired to run the municipal gas system in Portland at the height of the gas boom. His efforts were so successful that he was hired by the city of Kokomo Indiana (a much larger city} to run their gas system. While making his service rounds he conceived the idea of putting a gasoline engine in a buggy frame. The idea worked and so was born the first automobile. Some deny this but the oldest automobile in the Smithsonian in Washington DC is the Haynes vehicle. He also had the distinction of receiving the world’s first traffic ticket while driving his car in Chicago in 1895. A horse mounted officer cited him for interfering with traffic.

Another release of energy occurred only four miles from their farm. The farm bordered in the Loblolly swamp which was miles wide and miles long the home of bears, beavers, coon, foxes and unnumbered birds and insects. If drained it would provide great farmland and that soon became an issue but it also was the focus for study and research by Gene Stratton Porter. The wife of a local druggist she became interested in nature photography. The swamp was a gold mine of nature subjects which she exploited enormously. This knowledge led her to writing fiction and several illustrated nature books. She became known as a feminist and an environmentalist who wrote well, in fact many of her books were made into movies. The swamp was eventually drained but now 100 years later it is being converted back to wet land. She was the female in that part of the world to break the mold and there she was right in Rupel’s neighborhood.

All around the Rupel home there were many Amish who have their own idea of how life should be lived. The contrast of ideas could hardly be more dramatic – airplanes, automobiles, Amish and a feminist –environmentalist, all for a young man to see and know about.

He was born in 1880. All of the children went to Poling school a township school a scant three miles away. Ernest a brother went on to college and then medical school becoming a well known ear, nose and throat surgeon in Indianapolis Indiana. Ernest brought much of this history together in 1958 when he wrote an article about Albert’s Flying Machine.

He pointed out how the gas boom influenced Albert’s life. Since it was a new and exciting industry Albert wanted to be part of it, especially the use of gas (not Gasoline) engines, steam engines, steam boilers and all the tools that they used. He built a number of small gas engines, designing, casting, and machining the parts he needed using Babbitt metal. These engines were used to run butter churns and washing machines.

In 1903, while working on an engine, a fly wheel fell on his foot crushing some bones. While he was disabled he signed up for a correspondence course in stationary engineering at the Armor Technical Institute from Chicago Illinois.  Apparently this is where he heard of the work being done by the Wright Brothers, and like many others he was turned on to the world of aviation. He built several model airplanes of kites, finally building one with an eight foot wing span that he could tow into the air by running. From this he decided to build a man carrying machine in 1904. He bought angle iron and tubing from the Jones Cycle and Automobile Company in Portland. The Fabric came from the Knocker Shirt and Overall Company also in Portland. He fashioned the fabric into sleeves that slid down over the wing frames. The frame had four pneumatic wheels similar to those found on a bicycle. It had two propellers, to be driven by a chain drive from an engine under the pilots seat. The propellers were mounted on hubs that allowed the blades to be rotated to change their pitch/ IT had 450 square feet of wing which made it to big to be put in the barn so he made the wings fold against the sides of the fuselage.

Albert planned to enter this plane In a competition at the Columbia Exposition in ST. Louis in 1903 but it was not ready. None the less he went to St Louis to buy an engine for his machine. It was not to be as the only engine he could find was for a boat and it being to heavy and expensive he returned home empty handed. It is noted that the Wright Brothers were in attendance at the Exposition.

When he returned he decided to do two things, 1 Build his own engine 2 To make it fly by towing it into the air. A friend from Bluffton Indiana had an automobile that they tied to the aircraft with a 150 foot hay rope. They tried towing the plane but the car with its one cylinder motor just did not have to power to pull the plane into the air. Another friend Jim Hollingworth from Randolph County brought a stout team of horses and indeed this proved to be successful towing the aircraft nearly 50 feet into the air and then landing with only the slight misfortune of having a wheel collapse. To rectify this situation in the future a board was affixed to the frame to act like a sled runner.

Albert built his engine in the winter of 1904. It was nearly ready to fly in August 1905. While working on it in the barn one evening Albert stepped on a nail puncturing his foot. He had medical attention from a Dr. in Bryant In. two miles from the farm but in five days he had lock jaw and died at the age of 25.

The families were frugal people and it is told that they salvaged the metal out of the plane and used it to make cattle gates for the farm animals.

Albert had been married three months earlier in May of 1905. His widow married John Glendening a nephew of the friend who provided the horse team to tow the aircraft into the air on its maiden flight. The family was hard hit by his death especially since a younger sister had died recently from an infection. The mother was very distraught because of prayers she had offered involving Albert. Like many people at that time she believed that the wish to fly was an insult to God the Creator. Had God wanted man to fly he would have provided him with wings. She had prayed that Albert not be successful in his research and as such felt she had prayed for his death.

In the family papers it is reported that all his plans and papers were given to the Wright Brothers. All through the family history the families have reported close ties with the Wrights. Ernest (the brother) reported that the Wrights came to Albert’s funeral and acted as pall bearers.