[3][4][5] On February 28, 1910, the first airplane flight in New England took place when Herring took off from the frozen surface of Chebacco Lake in Hamilton, Massachusetts, in a pusher biplane he and Burgess built.

He built a building and a wooden "runway" near where the dunes meet the marshes, about a mile south of the current entrance to the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge.

The test range included approximately the area bounded by the dunes, the Plum Island Turnpike, High Road, and the Parker River.

In August 1910 Burgess and his team discontinued the test flights in order to prepare for the Harvard-Boston Aero Meet to be held the following month in Squantum, on Dorchester Bay.

Sometime in 1926–1929, the new Civil Aviation Administration (now the FAA) installed a beacon tower at the Plum Island field as a primary navigation aid to mark the Boston-Portland air route.

The small building (the current airport office) was used for many years as a restaurant known as the Cockpit Café, named by a local girl in a May 1938 contest in return for flying lessons.

During World War II, the Coast Guard used the hangars, and a group of small airplanes, probably a Civil Air Patrol unit, was based at Plum Island.

Frothingham, who had the sole Northeast dealership for Aeronca airplanes in the 1940s and 1950s, provided a variety of aviation services, including maintenance and flight training.

Several months later, the Great Blizzard of 1978 caused extensive flooding that damaged the runway and the T hangars and destroyed a number of planes.

In 2000 the airport was briefly closed after SPNEA declined to renew Hordon's lease citing concern for the safety of a historic structure on the property.

From 2006 to 2012, Plum Island Aerodrome housed Noyes Enterprises, which restored and sold Cessna L-19 Bird Dog aircraft.

During this time, the hangar and facilities were used to repower and modify a large number of Cessna L-19 aircraft for the Royal Canadian Air Cadets.