Harriet Quimby (1875-1912), an early aviatrix, was inspired to learn to fly after covering the October 1910 Belmont Park international aviation meet for Leslie's Illustrated Weekly in New York. She wrote drama reviews, travel pieces, and eventually accounts of her own adventures as a pilot. On August 1, 1911, she received the first aviation license granted to an American woman, and on April 16, 1912, she became the first woman to fly solo over the English Channel, though press coverage of her achievement was eclipsed by news of the Titanic disaster. On July 1, 1912, Quimby and a passenger died when her plane plunged into Dorchester Bay during a meet at Squantam, Massachusetts. Quimby lived in this house as a child and attended a nearby school. Her parents, William and Ursula Cook Quimby, settled in Bear Lake, present-day Arcadia Township, in 1867 and acquired the property in 1874. Ursula produced and sold patent medicines, including "Quimby's Liver Invigorator," advertised in The Manistee Daily News. Between 1887 and 1890 Harriet and her parents moved to Arroyo Grande, California, which she later claimed as her birthplace in interviews. By 1910 the Quimby family was living in San Francisco, where Harriet began her career as a drama critic.