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Richard Barlow of Monticello Wisconsin

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1. RICHARD R. BARLOW was a master tailor from Manchester, England.  He came to the United States in the 1850's and opened a tailor shop at Monticello, Green Co Wisconsin.

Richard R. Barlow married ANNE PICKUP and their children were born at Monticello:

The RUTLAND'S problems date back to 1915, when the Panama Canal Act, forbidding the operation of water routes by a carrier in competition with its own rail lines, relieved the Rutland of its Great Lakes traffic to the distinct advantage of the New York Central. The solution of those problems, depending on how you look at it, is either as young as Lester P. Barlow's fight to gain transportation for the thousands of beef cattle raised and fattened on his ranch at Shoreham Vermont -- or it's as old as the association, in 1795, of a group of Scots weavers who had come to the canny conclusion that Angus' shilling plus the shillings of Tam and Mac is equal to the same number of shillings belonging to the castle laird.
This eminent consulting engineer and assistant to the president of Glenn L. Martin Aviation Industries is overflowing with energy and confidence. Inventor of war devices which have brought him well over half a million dollars, Mr. Barlow at fifty suggests the researcher and student less than the daredevil young bombardier  who dropped the first bombs of modern warfare. The plane used was Martin's first war bomber, and its size, Mr. Barlow notes, was about equal to that of a tail fin on one of the modern giants of the air produced at the Martin plants.

That was back in 1914, in the Mexican Revolution, he recalls, adding: "Once a revolutionary, always..." As a matter of record, his Rutland scheme, however revolutionary it may appear, has roots in sound economic practice. He believes the Interstate Commerce Commission before which he has carried his fight to turn the Rutland into a co-opeperative railroad, serving the grain farmers of the West and the dairymen of New England and upper New York State, will not find reasonable cause to deny that fact.

Photo by George N. Lathrop, Aerial Photographer, Bristol, Vt. Feed yards on Barlow's Whiteface Ranch, Shoreham, Vt. Buildings are 600 feet long; yard accomodates 1000 beef cattle. Facing Lake Champlain, the 2200 acre ranch extends to edge of snow fields. Nineteen miles distant, the Green Mountains, dark against snow.

The New York Times - September 06, 1967                    Copy of Original
Lester P. Barlow Is Dead at 80    Built World War I Aerial Bomb   Inventor Had Many Clashes - Supported Huey Long and La Follette
Special to The New York Times

STAMFORD, Conn., Sept. 5 -- Lester Pence Barlow, inventor of some of the first aerial bombs and torpedoes used in World War I, died today at Stamford Hospital after a brief illness. He was 80 years old and lived on Cedar Heights Road, Stamford.
During his long and often controversial career, Mr. Barlow not only invented early aerial explosives but also claimed to have developed various super-weapons, put forward a plan for a nationwide system of express toll highways, and engaged in a variety of political ventures.

He was, according to many accounts, a man with a quick temper. He clashed frequently with members of Congress and Government officials, and once demanded the impeachment of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Mr. Barlow was born on December 02, 1886 in Monticello, Wis., and ended his formal education after the eighth grade.
Worked on Radio Station in 1904, he joined the Navy. During his four years' service, he was reported to have broken a world's gunnery record. He helped build the first wireless station on Guam.

After his discharge from the Navy in 1908, Mr. Barlow learned to fly. He joined the insurgent forces of Pancho Villa in Mexico in 1914 and there he first experimented with aerial bombs. The weapons were also being developed in France and Germany. Mr. Barlow's bombs, which he dropped on trainse carrying Federal troops, were small and not very effective, but they launched him on his career as an inventor.

As the United States moved closer to involvement in World War I, Mr. Barlow began working for the War Department on aerial bombs for the Army. When the United States declared war on Germany in 1917, production of Mr. Barlow's bombs began.
The patents on the Barlow bombs and torpedoes were dept secret during the war. They were made public in the mid-nineteen twenties. Mr. Barlow received no payment for his work on the weapons until 1940. Then, after a long court battle, Congress approved pament of $529,719 to the inventor. It was said at the time that the United States had used about 500,000 of Mr. Barlow's bombs in the war.

Proposed Air Torpedo

After World War I, Mr. Barlow proposed development of an aerial torpedo- something akin to a mdern missle- with a range of 500 miles or more, but the plan was rejected as impractical.

Later, he attempted to interest American military authorities in a secret super-weapon that he said would destroy cities 1000 miles from the launching point.

When the United States displayed little interest in the weapon, Mr. Barlow went to Moscow in 1932 and turned the weapon over to the Soviet Union in return, he said, for a pledge that oit would never be used except to force total disarmament.

In 1925, Mr. Barlow proposed construction of a billion dollar interstate highway system, similar to the one that has been developed during the past decade.As World War II approached, Mr. Barlow fought hard for the development of new and larger bobms. He gave a demonstration in Maryland of a new, secret bomb he had invented, powered by liquid oxygen and carbon.

Mr. Barlow contended that the explosive, which he called gimite (pronounced glimite) was more powerful than T.N.T. But in a test at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds on May 25, 1940, a 1,000 pound sack of glimite failed to harm 84 goats that had been tethered from 200 to 1000 feet from the detonating point.

"I can't understand it," Mr. Barlow muttered in disappointment. "I'm licked on it. But I had to try it to find out."

A month later, Mr. Barlow performed another test with gimite at Bolling Field. Engineers from the Glenn L. Martin Company declared it had greater explosive force than T.N.T., but Mr. Barlow announced that further experiments would not be held unless Congress provided the money, which Congress failed to do.

Accused Cabinet Members

Mr. Barlow subsequently became president of the Gimite Corporation and Mr. Martin, the aircraft manufacturer, became chairman of its board.The corporation produced the explosive for mining uses.
In 1937, Mr. Barlow clashed with the National Labor Relations Board after he had interrupted a hearing with the charge that its members were "Reds" and its proceedings were "a racket."

Mr. Barlow demanded the removal of three Cabinet members and said he would circulate a petition for the impeachment of President Roosevelt if the officials were not discharged. The petition, if it was circulated, did not get far.

Mr. Barlow married three times. His first marriage to Ruby Maryon, daughter of James Henry Maryon, a wealthy London banker, ended in divorce in 1918. His second marriage to Gertrude Fitzgerald, ended in divorce in 1941. His third marriage, to Eden Rawlins, ended in divorce in the mid nineteen-forties.

He is survived by a son by his second marriage, Edward L. Barlow of Stamford, and a brother, Floyd Barlow.

A funeral service will be held Friday in Clear Lake Iowa.

The Blue Book of Aviation, A Biographical History of American Aviation, 1932 edition:

Barlow, Floyd E., (Flying Instructor; Automobile Dealer): Born Monticello, Wis., Feb. 14, 1889, son of George E. and Jessie (Pence) Barlow.

Education: Public schools, Clear Lake, Ia. Married Hope Hayward of Clear Lake, Ia., July 7, 1916.

Children: Marilyn, Kingsley.


Floyd E. Barlow is one of the "Early Birds" in aviation. He began his career in 1910 as an automobile mechanic at Los Angeles, Calif. The following year he turned to aviation and received flying instruction at the Curtiss School at North Island, San Diego, Calif., and in 1912 was an assistant flying instruction for that school. Later in the same year he was a flyer for the Curtiss Exhibition Co., of Hammondsport, N.Y., continuing with this company until 1913. In 1914 he engaged in exhibition flying at Chicago, Ill., under the management of W.H. Pickens. During the period 1915-1916 he engaged as a salesman for the Fisk Rubber Co., and from 1917-19, during the U.S. participation in the World War, engaged as a civilian test pilot for the Marlin Rockwell Corp., of New Haven, Conn., in testing Marlin aircraft machine guns and aircraft bombs designed by his brother, Lester P. Barlow. In 1919 he re-engaged in the automobile sales business and located at Rapid City, S.D., as owner of the Barlow Hudson-Essex Automobile agency, and also engaged as a student flying instructor for the Rapid Airlines, Inc., of that city. Mr. Barlow recently disposed of his automobile interests and retired from commercial activities although he still retaines a flying interest in aviation.

F.A.I. certificate No. 129; Transport Pilot license No. 1389; owns a Great Lakes Trainer airplane.

Member: Early Birds Address: 723 11th St., Rapids City, S.D.                                   

Aviator Floyd E. Barlow in Curtiss Biplane
New Ulm, Minnesota - 1912

The Bradenton Herald, Saturday, Feb. 5, 1977

Floyd Edward Barlow, 87, a Bradenton resident whose career as a pilot began just eight years after the Wright brothers' famous flight, died Friday at Manatee Memorial Hospital.

Barlow, 1105 26th Ave. W., was one of a select group of early pilots called Early Birds -- a club whose original membership of 500 has diminished to fewer than 100; each having made his solo flight before December 7, 1916.

He saw his first airplane in California in 1909, and soon began taking flying lessons from famous pilot and airplane builder Glenn Curtis. Lessons consisted of much advise and pointing to various levers, Barlow once recalled. But with room for just one man in the cockpit, the first flight was always the first solo.

When pilot licenses were first issued in 1912, Barlow received license number 139. He stayed with Curtis for many years, flying the strange air buggies for exhibitions and fairs.

He claimed to have received a letter from Pancho Villa asking the young pilot to lead an air force for the Mexican revolutionary army (he declined).

During a lull in his flying activities, Barlow hunted a great deal and nearly died of shotgun wounds after a hunting accident.

He took up aviation again when World War I broke out testing bombs that his brother, an inventor, had made. In World War II, he trained British and American soldiers to fly.

He made his last flight in 1961. One of the planes Barlow flew in his early years now hangs in the Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution. He willed his voluminous scrapbooks of early aviation memorabilia to the institution.

Barlow, who was born in Monticello, Wis., moved to Bradenton in 1957. He is survived by his widow Hope Barlow; his daughter Marilynne Robertson of Buffalo, N.Y.; his son, Bishop Kingsley Barlow of Ivins, Wis.; four grandchildren and nine great grandchildren. Visitation will be from 2 to 4 p.m. and from 7 to 9 p.m. Sunday in Griffith-Cline's Bradenton Chapel. Services will be at 2 p.m. Monday, with Bishop Kingsley Barlow officiating. Burial will be in Manasota Memorial Park, Oneco.                              Copy of the original news article

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