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When Calves Could Fly...

Edgar S. Crosby Sr. Touched Many Lives When he Reached for the Sky

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Tuesday May 9, 2006

By Mike Cameron

Edgar S. Crosby Sr. impacted aviation, agriculture and international business like no other native Vermonter of his generation.  

Listening to his son  “Bub” Crosby tell stories about his father’s respected business career gives anyone with a love of airplanes, farming and travel, reasons to pay close attention to the details.  

Let us begin with a memento of Mr. Crosby Sr’s love of flying.  His soft helmet and flying goggles are prized family heirlooms.  “The first time I ever flew, was on his lap.  It was a Stearman biplane owned by Alphonse Quesnel, open cockpit and plenty of noise.  I was 3-years old and have been hooked on flying ever since,” Crosby Jr. remembers.  

Mr. Crosby Sr made his first solo flight in 1929 in a Waco biplane.  His successful dairy and cattle shipping business would one day feel the  full impact of an industry that like himself was just beginning to find it’s wings.

Railroads were the main freight carriers of the day and Bowman Crosby, Ed Sr.'s. father used them extensively. From his farm in Whiting this entrepreneurial and visionary gentleman became the biggest shipper of cattle to the Boston market east of the Mississippi.

Cows were collected at rail yards from Ogdensburgh New York, through the Champlain Islands and into Burlington.  Then the rail corridor from Burlington to Boston, serviced by the venerable Rutland Railroad would be utilized.

Dozens of  small stockyards along the way  would fill the freight trains with cows.  The final destination was the  huge Boston Stockyards.  

Mr. Crosby Sr. naturally would make friends and business contacts in Boston, one of those early  contacts was also an aviation enthusiast named Donald Douglas who would later go on to found and develop Douglas Aircraft which is today Mc Donald Douglas Corporation.  

The Douglas DC-3  for example was a twin engine transport aircraft that helped to win WWII.  The legendary company also developed one of the first supersonic jet aircraft known as the Douglas “Sky Rocket.” Others followed and most made headlines around the world.  

Edgar Crosby Sr. was a cautious man but not opposed to taking a risk based on sound research.  

In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s he was about to make a few international headlines of his own by introducing Agriculture to Aviation.  

He proved that calves could fly and fly safely many thousands of miles arriving at their destination none the worse for wear.  It is a remarkable story and  was captured in part through several in depth articles in the Burlington Free Press by veteran news writers Vic Maerki and Stu Perry during the early 1960’s.  

One Free Press headline is prophetic indeed... “The Herd Shot Round the World ... Well, Half Way”.   The article explained that “A pioneer group of calves flew the North Atlantic and on their success or failure may depend the growth of a new export business for a Vermont dairyman.  The “Zuidersea” a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines cargo plane, left Municipal Airport bound for Milan Italy, with 280 calves aboard.  The young stock have been purchased by a Dutch importing firm and will be raised on Italian farms.”  The article goes on to report.  At the time the Italian government was attempting to replenish it’s herd for both dairy and veal.  High quality veal in particular was a high demand import commodity in Italy at that time.

Mr. Crosby Sr’s timing was once again right on the money.  It is also interesting to note that the aircraft used to transport the calves was a Douglas DC7-F, a 4-engine state-of-the-art freight airliner that had been specialty modified to transport the animals in relative comfort.  The animals were not caged or put in boxes.  They had plenty of room and this kept flight mortality from the U.S.A. to Milan Italy almost nil. Another Dutch company Navobi was the key European contact for Mr. Crosby Sr. and his livestock company then located where Bub’s Barn furniture is now located. 

Gardenbroek’s Veevoederfabried “Navobi” n.v. in Holland was one of the top producers of calf formula in the world.  The deal was a marriage made in the air and was destined for even bigger and better things, that was before politics reared it’s ugly head.

The Italian government although not involved with the calf import business did want to take over the freight portion of the deal.  They too operated an airline and it was owned by the government.  Italy wanted Alitalia to take over the  freight transportation segment of the contract for any animals being transported into their country by air but the Italian carrier had little if any experience in the delicate matter of shipping young cattle on airplanes.  The Italian government’s position was ‘ship with us or we will cancel your landing permits’.  They did just that.    

The Italian method of crating the critters would have been a disaster.  Mortality numbers would have soared and overall productivity and profitability would have plummeted.  Crosby Sr.  knew it was an unacceptable arrangement. Further negotiations proved to be ineffective but it was not the end of Mr. Crosby Sr’s  impact on agriculture.    

Further business interests and entrepreneurial experiments kept him busy and productive throughout his life.  It is interesting to also note that what was once the Municipal Air Port of Burlington later became Burlington International Airport is due in no small part to this native Vermonter’s efforts to promote international business through agriculture.  He was a pioneer by being one of the first to utilize a relatively obscure mode of international freight commerce; the airplane.  

Mr. Crosby Sr. loved what the airplane could do and was friends with some of the pioneers of flight including Wiley Post perhaps the most courageous pilot in the history of aviation.  He was also a visionary who foresaw how advancements in flight would change and has changed the way we live today.  For that we are in his debt and shouldn’t forget his lifelong efforts.

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