PRINCETON — Resuming our look at the history of Mercer County, courtesy of Kyle McCormick’s “The Story of Mercer County,” (Charleston Publishing Co. 1957) and the signers of the Declaration of Independence, courtesy of Benson J. Lossing’s “Lives of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence,” which is a reprint of the 1848 original kindly provided on loan by Dr. O.J. Bailes, we now look at a history of local aviation in Mercer County.

The Princeton Airport was officially dedicated on August 14, 1937, with the principal speaker being Col. Louis A. Johnson, Clarksburg, then assistant secretary of the war, later secretary of defense. His plane, a DC-3, was the first large military plane to land at the Princeton Airport.

The airport served to train Army Air Corps cadets during World War II starting in March, 1943, when 200 cadets enrolled at Concord College took flying lessons under the tutelage of George Lynch and James Tolley, who operated the airport then. A total of 2,000 students were trained locally during the war.

Mercer County had relatively few air casualties over the years. Dr. Cecil Casto, a Beckley dentist, and his flight instructor Marshall Edwards, were killed in a crash near Kegley on June 17, 1945. A crash landing of  an U.S. Army B-17 at 3 a.m. on New Year’s Day 1946 on the Bluefield Country club golf course resulted in no serious injuries. A small monoplane piloted by Cyrus F. Thompson crashed on April 11, 1934, at the airport, with Thompson suffering a broken back and spending weeks in the hospital.

J.T. Thornton Jr., of Bluefield, was killed in a crash while taking off from the Beckley airport in a high wind (date unknown). A B-17 bomber crashed on Buckhorn Mountain in Bland County, Va., in February 1944 snow storm, killing all seven crew members aboard. The wreckage was brought out through Princeton en route to Richmond, Va., and the bodies of the crew were all cremated. It took three months for the wreckage to be detected by one of the Concord cadets.

Going to the Lossing book, we come to Richard Henry Lee, born on January 20, 1732, in Westmoreland County, Va. He was educated in England until he returned to Virginia at the age of 19, at the Wakefield School at Yorkshire, where he spent a lot of time studying ancient history and developing the spirit of republicanism which fueled his later efforts.

Upon his return to Virginia, Lee applied himself to literary pursuits and was active in the athletic exercises of the day.

At the age of 20, he organized a militia corps to which he was elected to command. His first appearance in public life was in 1755 when he volunteered the services of his corps to British Gen. James Braddock’s expedition against the French, which was refused by the latter. Braddock accepted then-Maj. George Washington’s forces, but refused his combat advice and lost his life at the Great Meadows.

In 1757, Lee was appointed a magistrate to his county of residence and made such a favorable impression that the other magistrates wrote to the governor, requesting his commission be backdated in order to legally appoint him the president of the magistrate court. About that same time, he was elected a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses. Both of these honors occurred when he was 25.

As a legislator, Lee didn’t engage in many of the debates early on, being too defiant to do so. He first engaged in a floor speech when it came time to debate an ordinance to ban the importation of slaves into the colony, which he supported. He also conducted the successful prosecution of  the colonial treasurer, Mr. Robinson, for failing to destroy treasury notes as required by law.

Lee organized the opposition in Virginia to the Stamp Act, breaking down barriers between the aristocracy and the common people to do so. He formed a partnership with Patrick Henry to represent the viewpoint of the opposition.

Lee was among the first in any colony to organize a “Committee of Correspondence.” He was greatly aided by having a brother who lived in London who associated with the leading men of the realm. It was through that information that Lee came to the conclusion that a complete separation from Great Britain was necessary.

I’ll conclude the Richard Henry Lee story next week.

See you next time. This makes a good stopping point for this column. To share input on this column, contact me c/o Mercer County Memories at jharvey1@frontiernet.net or

delimartman@yahoo.com.