Matthias C. Arnot (left, as a young boy), was an aviation enthusiast who financed Augustus Herring's work. He's often confused with his uncle, Matthias H. Arnot, President of the Chemung Canal Bank in Elmira, New York. Indeed, Matthias H. was opposed to experimentation with heavier-than-air aircraft, feeling it was a silly waste of money. This caused Matthias C., who worked as Vice President at his richer uncle's bank, to keep his aviation activities secret. 

In 1900, he abandoned his secretiive ways by holding a lecture at the Scientific Academy at Elmira (of which he was President), and in 1901 wrote about his aviation feats in the Decennial Journal of his Yale Class of 1891. (He had gained an engineering degree at Yale.)