Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2926

Heath’s obituary in the Baltimore Sun for October 10, 1963. Photo not shown.

 

 

 

Spencer Heath, Innovator

and Philosopher, Dies at 87

 

Winchester, Va., Oct. 9

Services for Spencer Heath, a man for whom innovation was a way of life and routine was anathema, will be held tomorrow at Christ Episcopal Church in Winchester.

 Mr. Heath, a former Baltimorean, died Sunday in Leesburg in his native Virginia at the age of 87. He had been in failing health for about a year.

 A pioneer throughout his long life, Mr. Heath did early experimental work on the telephone, hydraulic machinery, submarines, aircraft, botany, horticulture, “talking machines” and sail boats, and in his later years delved into problems of society, religion and philosophy.

 As one new device or project would become perfected and accepted, Mr. Heath would turn his searching mind to a new challenge.

 Since about 1925, Mr. Heath had devoted much of his energy to research in the phenomena of society. An engineer by training, he observed, questioned, read and wrote, and finally produced his “engineer’s report” under the title, “Citadel, Market & Altar,” published in 1957.

 In 1958, he began to develop a circle of kindred spirits in Orange County, California, and spent much of the time there as “octogenarian in residence” at several colleges in California, until he returned to Virginia in 1962.

 While philosophy and religion occupied much of his later life — at 79, he spent a year studying advanced theology at the University of the South in 1955 — industrial and scientific research received much of his time in his earlier days.

 In 1912, he moved to Baltimore from Washington, where he had been working as a lawyer, and incorporated the American Propeller and Manufacturing Company, in the days when, according to Mr. Heath, “anyone with any proper sense didn’t fool with aeroplanes.”

Propellers for “Air Ships”

Creditors who thought the propellers were for ships cut their funds abruptly when they learned that Mr. Heath’s product was for “air ships.”

Already having demonstrated the practicability of a helicopter, Mr. Heath developed in the 1920s an engine-powered and controlled, variable pitch propeller that did for airplanes what the gear shift did for the automobile.

 Compelled to produce a propeller that he knew to be unsound for World War I planes, he stamped each of them with the legend “Made under protest, condemned by manufacturer.” They were never used.

 His own “Paragon” propellers, however, found great success. Made in Baltimore of Maryland white oak, they propelled the first aircraft to cross the Atlantic, and eventually were put into wide use, both in the United States and abroad.

Interest in Horticulture

 The variable pitch propeller aided materially in the development of aviation into general use, and Mr. Heath turned his attention to a growing interest in horticulture and ornamental landscaping.

 In 1925 he formed the Roadsend Garden Nurseries in Elkridge, Md., and became an “agriculturist,” defined by Mr. Heath as someone who makes his money in the city and spends it in the country.

 Dissolving his propeller company, he retired to his farm in 1932 for research into the natural sciences and the development of social organization.

 In 1899, Mr. Heath married the late Johanna Maria Holm, who died in 1940. He is survived by three daughters, Mrs. Marguerite McConkey, Mrs. Lucile MacCallum and Mrs. Beatrice O’Connell. Six grandchildren and seven great grandchildren also survive.

 On the occasion of his eighty-sixth birthday, with friends in California, Mr. Heath observed:

“There is no end to life,

   There is only life, to life.”