"Henry Souther, Major, Senior Officer, Aircraft Engineering Division, Aviation Section, Signal Corps, United States Army and Vice President, Henry Souther Engineering Corporation, Hartford, Connecticut, died August 15, 1917 in the post hospital at Fortress Monroe, Virginia, following an operation. He was born at Boston in 1865 and was graduated in 1887 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he specialized in mining and metallurgical subjects. After studying abroad the manufacturing methods and processes employeed in the German iron and steel industry, he entered in 1888 the employ of the Pennsylvania Steel Company at Steelton and was made assistant foreman the following year. He was engineer of tests for the Pope Manufacturing Company, a position which he held for six years. At the Pope works he organized the first testing plant ever installed, it is believed by a consumer of steel for the use of cold drawn tubing for bicycles and automobiles. In 1894 he went abroad for the Pope company to investigate the manufacture of horseless vehicles which had just begun and was largely responsible for the first Pope model which was placed on the market in 1897.

When the Pope organization was dissolved in 1899 he engaged in business as an independent consulting engineer and established a metallurgical and testing laboratory and did consulting work for the automobile industry. He was Vice President and Treasurer of the Henry Souther Engineering Corporation from 1899 to 1909 and became President in 1911. Of late years he was not very active in the management of that organization and was Vice President and General Manager of the Ferro Machine & Foundry Company, Cleveland, from 1913 to the outbreak of the war. Latterly he had charge of the aircraft development of the Army and operated a corps for the inspection of aircraft.

He was a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and was prominent in the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers. He was a founder member of what is now the Society of Automotive Engineers and had much to do with the development of the organization. He leaves a wife and two married daughters."

He was of Bass Rocks, Massachusetts. "Souther Field" in Americus, Georgia, was named in his memory.

Compiler's Note: The property known as "Souther Field" during World War I was originally part of the world's largest peach orchard. It was purchased by the citizens of Sumter County and deeded to the United States Government in 1917. An aviation field was constructed immediately and later closed in 1921 and sold back to Sumter County in 1928. Perhaps the most famous of fliers to come in contact with Souther Field was Charles Augustus Lindberg, Jr. (4 Feb 1902, Detroit, Michigan - 26 Aug 1974 at Hana, Maui, Hawai`i). "Lindy" made his first solo flight from Souther Field in a Curtiss "Jenny" which he had purchased there at government auction when the field was closed. He made that flight 4 years before his trans-Atlantic crossing.