July 29, 1931: The monoplane Sirius lands on the island of North Haven. Charles Lindbergh, famous after having flown across the Atlantic four years earlier, steps out with his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
They visit Anne Lindbergh’s parents – New Jersey’s U.S. Sen Dwight Morrow and poet and future Smith College administrator Anne Cutler Morrow – who are spending the summer there. (Charles Lindbergh also is the son of a member of Congress. His father, Charles Augustus Lindbergh, represented Minnesota’s Sixth District for 10 years in the House of Representatives.)
The next day, the Lindberghs board the plane again and soar off into the clouds, resuming their pioneering flight along the Great Circle route to Asia.
Wearing flying suits heated by electricity and stopping at pre-arranged fuel depots, they cross Hudson’s Bay, Alaska, eastern Siberia and Japan before landing on the plane’s pontoons on the Yangtze River in China.
Anne Lindbergh, who serves as radio operator on the flight, describes the trip later in her bestselling 1935 book, “North to the Orient.”
The Lindberghs spend many summers after that on North Haven.
Presented by:
Joseph Owen is an author, retired newspaper editor and board member of the Kennebec Historical Society. Owen’s book, “This Day in Maine,” can be ordered at islandportpress.com. To get a signed copy use promo code signedbyjoe at checkout. Joe can be contacted at: jowen@mainetoday.com.
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