Matthew Bacon Sellers II

Matthew Bacon Sellers Jr. (March 29, 1869 – April 5, 1932) was a United States inventor and scientist known for pioneering work with airplanes. Sellers was the son of a prosperous Baltimore merchant family originally from Kentucky. He attended Harvard University and showed an early interest in the burgeoning field of aviation. Only 5 years after the historic Wright Brothers flight, he built and flew his own airplane, making such innovations as the first patent on retractable landing gear, and an ultra-lightweight design. He contributed to scientific papers and was on a founding federal body that eventually became NASA.

After a series of personal misfortunes and accidents, and a relatively early death, by the 1930s he largely disappeared from public view. His work was rediscovered in the 1970s, and today he has holdings in the Smithsonian Museum, and has been called Kentucky's version of the Wright Brothers. In 1908, he built and flew the first airplane in Kentucky.

Biography Sellers Jr. was born on March 29, 1869, at Sellers Mansion in Baltimore, Maryland. His father Matthew Bacon Sellers Sr. (1800-1880) had been a plantation owner in Louisiana who sold his holdings after the Civil War and moved to Baltimore, where he built the prestigious namesake mansion on Lafayette Square, using the proceeds from the Louisiana properties. Sellers Sr. was a prosperous citizen of Baltimore and became the President of the Northern Central Railway. Both Sellers Sr. and his second wife Angelina (1842-1913) were originally from Carter County, Kentucky. In 1888, Angelina purchased rural mountain land once owned by her family near Grahn, Kentucky, and named it "Blakemore". Sellers Jr. would later build a large farm house in the rural and mountainous area, continuing to live in Baltimore as his primary residence until 1918, and traveling to Kentucky on occasion.

As a teenager Sellers was schooled in Gottingen, Germany and Evreux, France. Each wing was staggered behind, and 2 feet (61 cm) below the one above. It was the first motorized airplane to be built in Kentucky. It included the first retractable wheels on an airplane. He was awarded numerous patents on various aeronautical prototypes and improvements. His children were Matthew Bacon Sellers III (1919-2003) who was a Navy Commander in the Pacific Theater of WWII, earning 14 battle stars in engagements such as Midway and Guadalcanal; and John Clark Sellers (1921-2008) who also served in the Navy during WWII and reached the rank of Lt. Commander during the war. Blakemore burned in 1974 during restoration, and his work shop that survived the fire was destroyed by a tornado in 1979 while in storage at the New England Air Museum. An airplane control bar from the quadruplane was donated to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, where it is sometimes on display, along with other physical and written artifacts from Sellers. On March 29, 2008, the State of Kentucky read a Resolution declaring that day as the "Matthew B. Sellers II Day". A roadside historical plaque in Carter County Kentucky is dedicated to Sellers.

Patents

Sellers obtained five US patents: