Marine Corps aviation officially began on 22 May 1912, when First Lieutenant Alfred Austell Cunningham reported to Naval Aviation Camp in Annapolis, Maryland, "for duty in connection with aviation."[3] On 20 August of that year, he became the first Marine aviator, as he took off in a Burgess Model H given to him by the Burgess Company in Marblehead Harbor in Marblehead, Massachusetts.[4]