We’ve earlier reported on places named for Steuben County; naval vessels with Steuben County names; and Curtiss airplanes on U.S. postage stamps. But there’s a “grab bag” of other worldwide recognitions – stamps and otherwise — of Steuben County.
CURTISS IN THE WORLD
*Wow, are Curtiss airplanes popular on world stamps! Here’s a listing as I’ve been able to find them – and it’s no doubt short!
*The June Bug: San Marino. Curtiss Museum has a flying reproduction of this 1908 airplane.
*The Silver Dart: Canada (two stamp designs).
*Curtiss Jenny: Micronesia (with a portrait of Glenn), Vietnam, Anguilla (the inverted Jenny), Equatorial Guinea, Guyana, Paraguay (inverted Jenny), Canada (the Canadian “Canuck” model), Bermuda (Jenny on floats), Liberia (two stamps). You can see an original Jenny at Curtiss Museum.
*Navy-Curtiss NC-4 (first aircraft to fly across the Atlantic): Hungary, Grenada, Portugal, Marshall Islands, Antigua-Barbuda.
* Model MF “Seagull” flying boat: Papua New Guinea There’s an original Seagull at Curtiss Museum.
*Model HS-2L flying boat: Canada.
*Hydroaeroplane (float plane): Cuba (three stamps, all featuring pioneer pilot Agustin Parla). Curtiss Museum has a flying reproduction.
*Curtiss Condor II airliner: Honduras.
*F8C Helldiver: Marshall Islands.
*The June Bug, the Silver Dart, most of the hydroaeroplanes, and some of the Jennys were made in Hammondsport. After Glenn’s death the Curtiss Buffalo plant made 14,000 P-40 “Warhawk” fighter planes (with components from Mercury Aircraft, in Hammondsport). The P-40 is an excitingly visual aircraft, bursting from stamps made for Cuba, Mozambique, Fiji, Liberia (three stamp designs), Guyana, Guinea-Bissau, Marshall Islands (three stamp designs), New Zealand, Palau, Central African Republic, Norfolk Island, Congo, Tuvalu, Canada, Papua New Guinea, Somaliland, Taiwan. Curtiss Museum has two original P-40s.
*Two more World War II airplanes made the stamps: the SOC3 Seagull (Kiribati), and the SB2C Helldiver (Vanuatu, Marshall Islands), also with components from Mercury Aircraft.
*MORE STEUBEN STAMPS
*Curtiss is not the only Steuben figure who has helped to move the mails.
*A Micronesian stamp shows Thomas J. Watson of Campbell in the famous “Think” photograph. (Palau and the Marshall Islands each have stamps honoring Thomas J. Watson, Jr. but as far as we know he never lived in Steuben.)
*The first non-Curtiss stamp with a Steuben connection came in 1948, when the Mount Palomar Observatory opened. A 3-cent U.S. stamp shows the dome of the observatory, and a glimpse of the Hale Telescope with its 200-inch reflector made at Corning Glass Works.
*The Hale Telescope has also been commemorated in stamps from Ascension, Hungary, and Nicaragua.
*A 1999 four-stamp U.S. set of commemorative “Glassmaking in America” U.S. stamps had its first day of issue at Corning Museum of Glass. Each stamp displays a different type of glass, in each case with four representative objects.
*The objects on the Art Glass stamp and on the Free Glass stamp all came from Corning Museum of Glass. Jane Shadel Spillman guided the selection process, and Nicholas Williams handled photography.
*And one of the objects (on the Art Glass stamp) was made in Steuben County: a Steuben Glass Aurene vase, made by Frederick Carder about 1917.
*AT SEA
*A staggering accomplishment of American industry was the Liberty Ship – 2710 World War II cargo ships, all based on a single design, and all made within four years.
*With nearly 3000 units at sea, the Liberty Ships were voracious for names. Hull 547, S.S. Marcus Whitman, honored the explorer/doctor/missionary who practiced in the Wheeler/Prattsburgh area. Launched in 1942, it was torpedoed and sunk off Brazil that same year.
*Hull 2293, S.S. Alanson B. Houghton (launched 1944, scrapped 1972), honored the glassmaking industrialist from Corning. Hull 2574, S.S. Narcissa Prentiss (launched 1943, scrapped 1961) memorialized Marcus Whitman’s Prattsburgh-born wife and colleague.
*HEAVENS ABOVE
*Minor Planet 34419, “Corning,” honors the city where the 200-inch mirror for the Hale Telescope at Mount Palomar was crafted. And while there’s a crater “Sanger” on the planet Venus, we imagine that “Corning” is generally the most distant use of a Steuben name… and we imagine it’s likely to stay that way!