THE WRIGHT BROTHERS
THE WRIGHT
BROTHERS
By FRED C. KELLY
_A Biography Authorized by
Orville Wright_
[Illustration]
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY
NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1943, BY
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC.
_All rights reserved, including
the right to reproduce this book
or portions thereof in any form._
[b-6-43]
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO
The Brave Flyers of the United Nations
Fighting All over the World for Humanity
and Decency Against the Forces of Barbarism,
This Book Is Dedicated
AUTHOR’S PREFACE
The aim in this book has been to satisfy the curiosity of the average,
non-technical reader regarding the work of the Wright Brothers, and to
do so as simply as possible. No attempt has been made to go into minute
technical details. Nor does the book cover the scientific researches
and numerous inventions by Orville Wright since the death of his
brother.
To give credit to everyone who has been gracious with help in the
preparation of what I have written would require so long a list, with
risk of names being unintentionally omitted, that I shall not attempt
it.
But one name naturally and obviously comes first and foremost--that of
Orville Wright himself. He has read my manuscript and given generously
of his time in verifying the accuracy of various statements and in
correcting inaccuracies which otherwise would have appeared.
Next in importance to that of Orville Wright has been the help received
from his secretary, Miss Mabel Beck, whose memory and knowledge of Mr.
Wright’s voluminous files enabled her quickly to produce documentary
evidence to make certain of accuracy.
FRED C. KELLY
Peninsula, Ohio
CONTENTS
_Author’s Preface_ vii
_Prologue_ 3
I. BOYHOOD 5
II. BACKGROUND 19
III. PRINTING--AND BICYCLES 29
IV. FIRST THOUGHTS OF FLIGHT 45
V. GLIDING AT KITTY HAWK 58
VI. FIRST POWER FLIGHT 84
VII. AFTER THE EVENT 112
VIII. EXPERIMENTS OF 1904-’05 120
IX. IT STILL WASN’T “NEWS” 139
X. U. S. ARMY NOT INTERESTED 147
XI. EUROPE DISCOVERS THE WRIGHTS 166
XII. THE WRIGHTS IN EUROPE 194
XIII. A DEAL WITH THE U. S. 207
XIV. END OF DISBELIEF 226
XV. WHEN WILBUR WRIGHT WON FRANCE 233
XVI. FURTHER ADVENTURES IN 1909 254
XVII. IN AVIATION BUSINESS 268
XVIII. PATENT SUITS 287
XIX. WHY THE WRIGHT PLANE WAS EXILED 300
_Index_ 335
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
THE FIRST CAMP AT KITTY HAWK 52
THE 1902 GLIDER 53
INSIDE THE 1902 CAMP 84
FROM ORVILLE WRIGHT’S DIARY 85
FIRST FLIGHT 116
THE FIRST POWER PLANE 117
THE HUFFMAN PASTURE 148
THE WRIGHT PATENT 149
THE U. S. ARMY TEST 180
AT FORT MYER 181
THE WRIGHT PLANE IN FRANCE 212
THE WRIGHTS AND WILBUR’S FRENCH PUPILS 213
THE OLD AND THE NEW IN TRANSPORTATION 244
DEMONSTRATION AT PAU 245
TWO ACES AND KING 276
THE WRIGHT HOME AND SHOP 277
THE WRIGHT BROTHERS
PROLOGUE
In a corner of the Pullman smoking compartment, by the window, the man
who had been explaining the whole economic system mentioned inventors
as an example of the fortunate relationship between desire for money
and scientific progress.
“Take the Wright brothers,” he said. “Would they have worked all those
years trying to fly just for their health?”
Another passenger ventured to ask: “Don’t people sometimes become
curious about a problem and work to see what they can find out?”
The man by the window chuckled tolerantly as he replied: “Do you think
those Wright brothers would have kept on pouring money into their
experiments and risking their lives if they hadn’t hoped to get rich at
it? No, sir! It was the chance to make a fortune that kept them going.”
Most of the other passengers in the compartment nodded in agreement.
Not long afterward, one of those who had overheard that conversation
was in Dayton, Ohio, and inquired of his friend Orville Wright: “Do you
think the expectation of profit is the main incentive to inventors?”
Orville Wright didn’t think so. He doubted if Alexander Graham Bell
expected to make much out of the telephone. And it seemed to him
unlikely that Edison started out with the idea of making money.
Certainly, he said, Steinmetz had little interest in financial reward.
All Steinmetz asked of life was the opportunity to spend as much time
as possible in the laboratory working at problems that interested him.
“And the Wright brothers?”
If they had been interested in invention with the idea of making money,
said Orville Wright, looking amused, they “most assuredly would have
tried something in which the chances for success were brighter.”
I
BOYHOOD
From earliest years both Wilbur and Orville Wright were motivated by
what Thorstein Veblen called the “instinct of workmanship.” Their
father, the Reverend Milton Wright, used to encourage them in this and
never chided them for spending on their hobbies what little money they
might have. But he did urge them to try to earn enough to meet the
costs of whatever projects they were carrying on. “All the money anyone
needs,” he used to say, “is just enough to prevent one from being a
burden on others.”
Both brothers were fascinated by mechanics almost from the time they
were conscious of interest in anything. The childhood events most vivid
in the recollections of Orville Wright have had to do with mechanical
devices of one kind or another. One of the high spots was the day he
attained the age of five, because he received for a birthday gift a
gyroscopic top that would maintain its balance and spin while resting
on the edge of a knife-blade.
Shortly after that fifth birthday, and partly because of his inborn
enthusiasm over mechanics, Orville began an association with another
boy that had an important influence on his life. His mother started him
to kindergarten. The school was within a short walking distance of the
Wright home and Orville set out after breakfast each morning with just
enough time to reach the classroom if he didn’t loiter. His mother bade
him return home promptly after he was dismissed and he always arrived
punctually at the time expected. When asked how he was getting along,
he cheerfully said all was going well, but did not go into details. At
the end of a month his mother went to visit the kindergarten to learn
just how Orvie was doing.
“I hope the child has been behaving himself,” said the mother to the
teacher.
The teacher stared at her in astonishment. “Why,” said she, “you know,
since the first few days I haven’t _seen_ him. I supposed you had
decided to keep him at home.”
It turned out that Orville had almost immediately lost interest in
kindergarten and instead had regularly gone to a house two doors from
his own, on Hawthorne Street, to join a playmate, Edwin Henry Sines.
With an eye on the clock to adjust himself to the kindergarten hours,
he had stayed there and played with young Sines until about a minute
before he was due at home.
Orville’s father and mother were not too severe when this little
irregularity was discovered, because the boys had not been engaged in
any mischief. On the contrary, their play had been of a sort that might
properly be called “constructive.” The thing that had occupied them
most was an old sewing-machine belonging to Sines’ mother. They “oiled”
it by dropping water from a feather into the oil-holes!
Both Orville and Wilbur followed their father’s advice and earned
whatever money they spent. One source of income was from wiping dishes
in the evening, for which their mother paid a flat rate of one cent.
Sometimes she employed them to make minor household repairs. Orville
seemed to find more outlets for money than did Wilbur, who was more
saving, and from time to time he borrowed from Wilbur--but he kept his
credit good by sticking to an arrangement they always made that the
next money earned should be applied on the debt.
One of Orville’s early money-making ventures was the collecting of
old bones in near-by alleys, vacant lots, or neighbors’ yards, and
selling them to a fertilizer factory. He and another boy first did this
as a means for raising funds with which to buy candy for use while
fishing. They accumulated a weight of bones that it seemed to them must
represent a small fortune--and were somewhat shocked when the buyer
paid them only three cents.
At first, Orville’s associates in his projects were boys of his own
age rather than Wilbur, who was more than four years older and moved
in a different group; but a day came when the brothers began to share
curiosity over a mechanical phenomenon. In June, 1878, when Orville
was seven years old and Wilbur eleven, the Wright family left Dayton,
because the work of the father, who had been made a Bishop of the
United Brethren church, was shifted to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. And it was
in a house on Adams Street, in Cedar Rapids, not long after their
arrival there, that an event occurred which was to have much influence
on the lives of Wilbur and Orville--as well as to have its effect on
the whole human race.
Bishop Wright had returned from a short trip on church business
bringing with him a little present for his two younger sons.
“Look here, boys,” he said to Wilbur and Orville, holding out his
hands with something hidden between them. Then he tossed the gift
toward them. But instead of falling at once to the floor or into their
hands, as they expected, it went to the ceiling where it fluttered
briefly before it fell. It was a flying-machine, a helicopter, the
invention of a Frenchman, Alphonse Pénaud. Made of cork, bamboo, and
thin paper, the device weighed so little that twisted rubber bands
provided all the power needed to send it aloft for a few seconds.
As the brothers were to learn later, Pénaud, an invalid during most
of his short life, had not only invented, as early as 1871, various
kinds of toy flying-machines--both the helicopter type and others that
flew horizontally--but was the originator of the use of rubber bands
for motive power. Simple as was this helicopter--they called it the
“bat”--Wilbur and Orville felt great admiration for its ingenuity.
Though it soon went the way of all fragile toys, the impression it left
on their minds never faded.
Not long afterward Wilbur tried to build an improvement on that toy
helicopter. If so small a device could fly, why not make a bigger
one that could fly longer and higher? Orville was still too young
to contribute much to the actual building of larger models, but he
was keenly interested as Wilbur made several, each larger than the
one preceding. To the brothers’ astonishment, they discovered, that
the bigger the machine, the less it would fly; and if it was much
bigger than the original toy, it wouldn’t fly at all. They did not
yet understand that a machine of only twice the linear dimensions of
another would require eight times the power.
Orville, meanwhile, had distinguished himself in another way, by
organizing an army. His grade at school was dismissed one Friday
afternoon, though the rest of the school was in session, and it
occurred to Orville that it might be amusing to march by, throw gravel
on the windows, and taunt those who were still at their lessons.
Supported by his friend, Bert Shaffer, he proposed to a dozen other
boys in the class that they form themselves into an army, and act not
as individuals but as an organization. For having thought of the idea,
Orville, who had been doing some reading about Napoleon, would be the
General, but there would be Colonels and Captains as well. In fact,
they used up all the military titles they knew. Lacking guns, they
would have to carry wooden clubs, and these they got by removing some
loose pickets from the school fence. All went well until the school
janitor began to chase them, evidently intending to capture them. One
of the boys made him pause by throwing a rock in his direction as he
was crawling through a hole in the fence. After escaping into a distant
alley, all in the army assumed they would probably be in plenty of
trouble when they returned to school Monday morning.
“We’ll be all right,” said Orville, feeling bound, as their commanding
General, to try to uphold the army’s morale, “if we stick together.
They can’t fire us all.”
He mounted a box lying in the alley and outlined what they should do.
The teacher would doubtless single out only two or three of them that
had been recognized by the janitor and ask them to stay after school.
But if the teacher asked one of them to stand up, they must all stand
up; or, if she asked one to stay after school, all must stay, and show
their solidarity. “All for one, and one for all,” he quoted.
When they were back in school at the next session, the teacher said
nothing to indicate that retribution was in the making; but when the
class was dismissed at the end of the afternoon, she asked Orville to
“remain.” True to their pact, all the rest of the army stayed in their
seats--or, rather, all except one under-sized lad. A few minutes later,
the teacher asked Orville to come to her desk. As he stepped forward,
all the others started to do likewise. “The rest of you sit down,”
commanded the teacher, and then added: “I don’t know why you’re here at
all.” Her tone was such that all meekly sat down.
When Orville reached her desk, she said: “You were speaking of a
song you could bring for the exercises next Friday”--and went on to
talk, pleasantly enough, of Orville’s part in a forthcoming school
entertainment.
She didn’t even seem to know about the daring behavior of the army in
the school yard. Probably the janitor, embarrassed over his failure to
capture the culprits, had not reported them.
While in Cedar Rapids, Orville showed enterprise in another direction.
He had enough intellectual curiosity to study lessons that the teacher
had not yet assigned. When a little more than eight years old he told
his father that he was tired of the Second Reader they were still
studying at school and wished he had a Third Reader.
One morning, not long after that, at the middle of the school year, the
principal came to the room Orville was in and announced that any pupils
who showed enough proficiency in reading might be promoted at once,
without waiting until the end of the year, and begin the Third Reader.
The more promising members of the class, selected by the teacher,
then stood toeing a chalk mark, up front, as was commonly done, and
took turns at reading. In his alarm lest he might not do himself full
justice, Orville, someone told him later, held his book upside down.
That did not prevent him from reading accurately, as he knew the book
by heart, and he was promoted.
“I’m now in the Third Reader class,” he proudly announced when he
reached home that noon.
“Well, that’s a strange thing,” said his father. “Just this morning
I bought the Third Reader you asked for. But,” he added, “you
won’t be able to use it today, because you’re going to miss school
this afternoon. I have arranged for you and Wilbur to go to the
photographer’s and have your pictures taken.”
Orville’s picture thus commemorated what had seemed to him an important
event in his life.
After three years in Cedar Rapids, the Wright family, in June 1881,
moved to Richmond, Indiana, partly that Mrs. Wright, who was not in
robust health, might have the companionship of her sister who lived
there. It was in Richmond that Orville took up the building and flying
of kites. Though it interested him, Wilbur did not then take much part
in this kite-flying sport, because he feared it might be considered too
juvenile for a boy of his size. Orville came to be considered an expert
at kite-making and sold kites to playmates as a convenient means of
getting spending money. He made the framework of his kites as thin as
possible, to reduce weight. Indeed, they were so thin that they would
often bend in the wind and the kite formed an arc. But it did not then
occur to Orville that this curvature of the kite’s surface had any
relation to its good flying qualities.
Though he had turned his kite-making to profit, Orville’s best
source of revenue in Richmond was a job of folding papers, a church
publication. For additional spending money he entered the junk
business. He would go after school or on Saturdays to pick up scraps of
metal thrown out by a chain factory, and hauled this in his “express”
wagon to a junk dealer’s yard.
One of his projects was the building of a small wooden lathe. It was
too small to be quite satisfactory, and Wilbur offered to help him
build a larger lathe, seven or eight feet long. This was the first
“big” mechanical job he and Wilbur worked on together.
The lathe was considered a great success, especially by neighbor boys
who thought it a privilege to work the foot-treadle that provided
the motive power. But Wilbur felt that it should be improved. He
had noticed that bicycles were being equipped with ball-bearings
to give easy running quality and he said the lathe ought to have
ball-bearings. He looked about the barn for material that could be
adapted and took some metal rings from an old set of harness. When two
of these were held tightly side by side they formed the outer track for
the ball-bearings; but, instead of steel balls, marbles were used--the
common kind, made of clay, that we used to call “commies.” Within this
circle of marble bearings would rest the shaft of the lathe. The idea
seemed so sound that the brothers’ friends were much impressed. Many
were on hand in the upper floor of the barn awaiting eagerly the final
tinkering before the ball-bearing “patent” could be demonstrated. As
soon as the lathe was put into operation, there was a terrible noise
and then it seemed as if the barn itself was beginning to sway and
shake. It was evident that the marbles in the bearing had not been
strong enough to withstand the stress; but why should the barn become
so agitated? Orville went downstairs to find out if there could be any
other cause.
When he reached the outside he saw his sister Katharine held against
the side of the house by an invisible force. A small cyclone was taking
place! All the boys upstairs had been too absorbed to notice such minor
phenomena as weather.
Some of the enterprises Orville got into at Richmond were not of a
mechanical nature; and Wilbur, if sharing in them at all, appeared only
in the background, or as a consultant, for he was at an age when a boy
gave thought to his dignity. Orville had noticed that many boys chewed
small hunks of tar. It seemed to him that if the tar could be flavored
with sugar to make it more palatable, and small pieces were wrapped
in tissue paper, a market for the product might be found. He and his
friend, Harry Morrow, began a series of experiments in the Wright back
yard, and they seemed well on their way to having a saleable article.
But as they kept testing their samples, both became ill--some kind of
stomach disorder, accompanied by nausea--and abandoned their plans.
Wilbur, though not a partner in all this, was much interested and for
years afterwards used to refer to “that chawin’ gum corporation.”
If Orville was “into” more different things at this time than his
brother, it was mainly because Wilbur’s great passion was for reading.
And what he read, he absorbed. It wasn’t long until he himself began to
show a gift for writing. Because of that, Wilbur played an important
part in one of Orville’s early business ventures--though behind the
scenes.
One of Orville’s friends was a boy living next door named Gansey
Johnston, whose father made a hobby of taxidermy. They often played
in the Johnston barn where the father had a collection of stuffed
birds and animals. One day Orville’s imagination was much stirred.
He saw possibilities for putting those birds and animals to good
use--especially when he noted that there was even a huge black bear and
a grizzly. It was obvious to him that he and the Johnston boy should
form a partnership and he asked Gansey how he would feel about such an
arrangement.
“Partnership to do what?” asked the boy.
Why, said Orville, to give a circus!
Though he had never thought of giving a circus, the Johnston lad caught
the idea and soon was enthusiastic. They then decided to take in
Orville’s friend, Harry Morrow, as a third partner. Their show would be
known as The Great W. J. & M. Circus.
As the date for the big show approached, sixteen-year-old Wilbur
Wright, who had been taking great interest in the preparations, asked
Orville what he had done about advance notices in the newspapers.
Orville had to admit that he had done nothing.
Wilbur appeared to be shocked that no one had taken steps fully to
prepare the public mind for the coming event, and offered to write a
suitable reading notice about the street parade. This, he said, should
be placed in the Richmond _Evening Item_. He had absorbed the method of
expression used in circus bills and his forecast of the parade was a
masterpiece. There was nothing amateurish about the way he introduced
such words as “mammoth,” “colossal,” and “stupendous,” nor about his
use of impressively large figures--“thousands of strange birds from all
parts of the world” that would positively be in the menagerie. It was
announced that the proprietors of the big show would personally lead
the parade on “iron horses”; and that Davy Crockett would positively
appear with a grizzly bear. At the end of the notice, in professional
manner, was the exact route of the parade, that the populace might not
miss the great free exhibition of wonders. The notice also gave the
prices of admission to the big show--three cents for children under
three years; others, five cents. Wilbur gave the piece of publicity to
Orville to take to the _Item_ office.
There was a little box just inside a door to a stairway leading to the
editorial rooms, and the boys knew it was intended for news items. But
they walked up and down the street in front of the newspaper office for
a long time before they had the courage to enter the stairway. What
if someone should _see_ them! Finally, when they thought no one was
looking, one of them ran up to the box and in desperate haste deposited
their piece of publicity. Then both ran up the street at a speed that
could have attracted attention.
The editor of the _Item_ evidently had a good news sense and recognized
the mysterious “press release” as a local item worth printing. He had
no way of knowing who “W. J. & M.” were, but felt sure the account of
that forthcoming parade had plenty of reader interest. It came about,
therefore, that Wilbur’s advance notice had a prominent position in the
_Item_ of September 10, 1883, under a heading that asked: “What Are the
Boys Up To?”
Though some of Wilbur’s figures about the number of rare birds and
wild animals may have been a bit overdrawn, to conform to circus bill
standards, he had not exaggerated the amazing nature of the parade. Two
of the proprietors, Wright and Johnston, actually appeared at the head
of the parade on their “iron horses.” These were high-wheel bicycles,
one of them having wooden spokes. The third associate proprietor of the
big show, Harry Morrow, was unavoidably absent, because his parents had
gone on a vacation trip to Michigan, and had insisted, much against his
wishes, on taking him with them.
A principal “parade wagon” was the running gear of an old buggy, with
no body but only a few planks to make a platform on which were some of
the “thousands of rare birds,” and also the great, frightful grizzly
bear held in leash by Davy Crockett. Though no horses were hitched to
this “wagon,” plenty of boys had volunteered their services as “slaves”
to pull it through the streets. At the last minute, “Corky” Johnston,
nine-year-old brother of one of the proprietors, got into a fight with
the circus bosses, and they felt compelled to deny him the privilege of
participating in the parade. This created a problem, for he had been
cast for the role of Davy Crockett, wearing his father’s hunting togs,
including high boots. The circus chiefs got around that, the best they
could, by assigning the Davy Crockett part to Corky’s younger brother,
Griswold, not yet five years old. He was almost overwhelmed by the
hunting suit; but in the rush of getting the parade started he was the
best Davy Crockett available.
Wilbur’s advance notice was more successful than he had hoped for. It
had aroused so much curiosity that when the parade reached that part of
the announced line of march in the business section, the streets were
lined with people--almost as many, in fact, as if the circus had been
Barnum’s.
Messrs. W. & J., astounded by the unexpected attention the parade was
attracting, began to feel much too conspicuous. They hastily decided
that their route must be changed, and the parade turned up an alley!
So many customers came that not all who clamored for admission to the
Johnston barn could be accommodated, and it was decided to repeat
the show. But while those who got into the barn were viewing the
“menagerie,” the boy who had been denied the privilege of appearing
as Davy Crockett saw an opportunity to get his revenge. He got up on
the barn roof and addressed the multitude, telling them they might as
well disperse and seek their homes, because, he said, there would be no
other performance.
The crowd took him at his word.
Orville Wright had previously organized another circus, in partnership
with a neighbor boy named Miller, who had a Shetland pony. For this
show the admission was only one cent. Though the gross receipts were
not vast, the show was a great success, partly in consequence of the
profound impression it had made on the Miller boy’s father. At the
close of the performance, he announced that the show people would be
guests of honor at a reception, to which the spectators also were
cordially invited. Lemonade, ice cream, and cake were served in lavish
quantities, and every boy felt that, taking the afternoon as a whole,
he had had his money’s worth.
But of all the enterprises in which the Wright brothers showed their
initiative in Richmond, the Great W. J. & M. Circus probably caused the
most talk. People thought the boy who had organized that show would
doubtless amount to something. Many ventured the opinion, too, that
the youngster, whoever he was, who had prepared that notice for the
newspaper about the parade, would surely be “heard from.”
II
BACKGROUND
Certain traits that were to show in Wilbur and Orville Wright--the
pioneering urge, the gift for original thinking, and mechanical
aptitude--were all in their ancestry.
Take, for example, their grandfather, John G. Koerner. Native of a
German village, near Schleiz, he became so bitterly opposed to German
militarism and autocracy that he determined to migrate to the United
States. He sailed from Bremen to Baltimore early in 1818 and went to
live in Virginia. Besides gaining recognition in the United States for
his mechanical ability and for the superior quality of farm wagons
and carriages he manufactured, he became known, too, as a person who
did his own thinking. He did not accept all that he heard or read.
Indeed, he seems to have been a “character.” It was his habit to read
newspapers aloud to his family, and when, as invariably happened, he
came to something that interested him because of approval, disapproval,
or for any other reason, he would interpolate comment without changing
his tone or rate of utterance. It was impossible for a listener to tell
just how much that he seemed to be reading was actually in the paper
and which ideas were his own. One by one, members of his family would
study the paper afterward to see if various surprising statements were
really there. No matter how commonplace a newspaper article may have
been, it was never colorless as he read it.
His wife, the former Catherine Fry, American born, also came of pioneer
ancestry, from the German language section of Switzerland. Their
daughter, Susan Catherine Koerner, was born April 30, 1831, when they
lived at Hillsboro, Loudoun County, Virginia, but the family moved to
Union County, Indiana, shortly after that--at a time when there was
still pioneering life in the Hoosier country. The Koerner farm became
a rather impressive one for those times. There were finally a dozen or
fourteen buildings, including the carriage shop, all conspicuous for
their workmanlike construction and orderliness. John Koerner lived to
the age of eighty-six.
Perhaps the most interesting pioneer of all in the Wright brothers’
ancestry was Catharine[1] (Benham) Van Cleve, the first white woman to
set foot in Dayton. Her husband, John Van Cleve, whom she had married
in New Jersey, was a descendant of a Van Cleve who had come from
Holland to Long Island before 1650. When he proposed, a few years after
their marriage, that they should settle in the almost unexplored virgin
forest region of Ohio, she liked the adventurous idea. They migrated to
Cincinnati--then called Losantiville--in 1790. Within two years after
their arrival, John Van Cleve was killed by Indians. His widow married
Samuel Thompson and, in April, 1796, they decided to try their luck at
a settlement about to be established, fifty miles to the north. The
place had just been named in honor of Jonathan Dayton, a Revolutionary
soldier. Three groups of people arranged to make the trip at about the
same time. So unsettled was the country, and so nearly non-existent
were the wagon trails, that the party which included Catharine Van
Cleve Thompson preferred to travel in a flat-bottomed boat on the
Miami River. The others went by land. Though the boat trip took about
ten days, that group was the first to arrive. Among those in the boat
were some of the Van Cleve children; another of them was in one of
the overland parties. A Van Cleve son, Benjamin, became the first
postmaster at Dayton, the first school teacher, and also the first
county clerk. His marriage at Dayton in August, 1800, to Mary Whitten,
was the first recorded in Montgomery County.
Margaret Van Cleve, a sister of Benjamin, had stayed in Cincinnati,
because she was about to be married--to George Reeder, later an
innkeeper. They had a daughter, Catharine, who became the wife of Dan
Wright (not named Daniel, but plain Dan, as was also his father), who
had come to Centerville, Ohio, near Dayton, in 1811. It was of this
union that Milton Wright, father of Wilbur and Orville, was born--in a
log cabin in Rush County, Indiana, November 17, 1828.
Dan Wright’s ancestry could be traced back to one John Wright, known to
have bought Kelvedon Hall, in Essex County, England, in 1538. A less
remote ancestor, Samuel Wright, had migrated to America in 1636, and
settled at Springfield, Mass.
At the time of his marriage, Dan Wright was employed in a distillery.
But he evidently did not feel comfortable over his occupation and quit
the distillery job to devote his whole attention to farming. Moreover,
he “got religion” and would no longer even sell his corn to distillers.
Perhaps it was because of the strong religious feeling of Dan Wright
that his son, Milton, at the age of eighteen, had joined the United
Brethren church.
Milton Wright attended a small college in near-by Hartsville, Indiana,
and at the age of twenty-two he received from the United Brethren
church his certificate entitling him to preach. But he did not at once
actively enter the ministry. The pioneer urge was in him and he went
to the Willamette Valley, in Oregon, where for two years he was a
teacher in a small college conducted under the auspices of the church.
It was three or four years after finishing his course at Hartsville
that he met the young woman, a student there, who was to become his
wife. Mutual friends had spoken to him of Susan Catherine Koerner, of
how charming, how “smart” she was, and when he found an opportunity
to be introduced to her, he was by no means disinclined to make her
acquaintance. They were married on November 24, 1859, a week after his
thirty-first birthday.
During the first few years after their marriage, the Milton Wrights
lived at several different places in Indiana. Their first child,
Reuchlin, was born in March, 1861, on a farm[2] near Fairmount; and
Lorin, the second son, a year and a half later, in Fayette County, at
the home of his grandparents. When Wilbur was born, April 16, 1867,
the family was living on a small farm the father had bought near the
village of Millville, eight miles east of New Castle. Wilbur was named
for Wilbur Fiske, a churchman whom the father admired; but his name did
not include the Fiske. None of the Wright children ever had a middle
name.
For a year, the Rev. Milton Wright was minister of a church at
Hartsville, and also taught in the college he had attended there. Then,
in June, 1869, he became editor of the _Religious Telescope_, a United
Brethren weekly, at Dayton, the home of those pioneer ancestors.
A year or more after their arrival for their first stay in Dayton,
the Wright family bought, while it was still under construction, a
modest seven-room house at 7 Hawthorne Street. This was on the West
Side, across the Miami river, and about a mile from the main business
section. Here Orville Wright--named for Orville Dewey, a Unitarian
minister--was born on August 19, 1871; and his sister, Katharine, three
years later to the day.
During the family’s absence in Cedar Rapids and Richmond, the Hawthorne
Street house was rented, but the Wright family was once again to live
there, for in June, 1884, the Rev. Milton Wright’s work brought him
from Richmond back to Dayton. When, sixteen months later, the tenant’s
lease expired and they were settled again at 7 Hawthorne Street, all
the family felt that they were where they “belonged.”
The family’s return to Dayton was a few days before Wilbur would have
been graduated from high school at Richmond. With the final year of
the course so nearly completed, he would have received his diploma if
he had been present with his class on commencement day. But Wilbur did
not consider the mere diploma itself important enough to justify a trip
back to Richmond, even though the distance was less than fifty miles.
His decision was a subject for family talks and all agreed that Wilbur
should do as he thought best. The father felt, as did the others, that
receiving a diploma was ceremonial and less important than the actual
education gained.
Wilbur decided to take a special course at the high school in Dayton
the next year. He wished especially to continue the study of Greek, and
to learn trigonometry.
Orville had been in the sixth grade at Richmond, but a week or two
before the end of the year he got into a bit of mischief that caused
his teacher, Miss Bond, to dismiss him. She said he could not return
to school until either his father or mother came with him to guarantee
that his deportment would improve. But his father was away from home at
the time, and his mother was too busy packing for the move to Dayton to
take time for consultation with that teacher. Orville simply stayed out
of school for the rest of the year.
When he entered school in Dayton the next September, with no
certificate to show that he had completed the sixth grade, it looked
as if he might have to be in that grade for another year. But Orville
was so violent and uncompromising in his protests that the school
authorities said he might try the seventh grade until they could see
how well he got along. At the end of the year he passed into the eighth
grade with the highest mark in arithmetic in the city.
When Orville entered the eighth grade, Miss Jennings, who taught
grammar, evidently thought she detected something mischievous about him
and assigned him to a front seat in her class.
The next year, the same teacher had been promoted to the high school,
as a teacher of algebra, and again she put Orville up in front where
she could keep an eye on him. Orville’s front seats became a subject
for family jests.
Later on in his high school course, Orville was demonstrating a problem
in geometry on the blackboard, when his teacher, Miss Wilson, pointed
out that though he had the correct answer, he evidently had not
followed the textbook.
“I got it out of another book--Wentworth’s geometry,” Orville
explained. And he added: “I get a lot of good stuff from Wentworth.”
Instead of complimenting him on having enough interest in the subject
to consult another source, the teacher chided him for referring to what
she called “a beautiful science” as “stuff.”
Orville had no compunction about telling at meal time of such episodes.
He knew he wouldn’t be scolded. It was simply good conversational
material and would provoke sympathetic laughter.
The family was interested, too, in the inventiveness of the boys.
Lorin had once invented an improvement on a hay-baling machine. Wilbur
had designed and built a practical device for folding paper. This was
while he had the contract for folding the entire weekly issue of an
eight-page church paper. He had found the hand work tedious and got up
a machine that could be worked by a foot-treadle.
For a long time the mechanical ability that had aroused the most family
admiration, though, was in the mother. Susan Koerner Wright was more
than ordinarily resourceful in adapting household tools or utensils to
unexpected uses. She was clever at designing clothes, too; and once she
had built a sled for the two older boys. As her family used to say, she
“could mend anything.”
The mother, however, was not long to be spared to her family. On July
4, 1889, or less than four years after the return to Hawthorne Street,
she died. During the latter years of her life, Wilbur was much with his
mother, and devoted himself almost constantly to her care, for he too
at that time was an invalid, unable to engage in much outdoor activity.
Wilbur’s illness was in consequence of an accident. While playing a
game of shinny, on skates, he was hit in the face with a shinny club.
The blow knocked out all his upper front teeth. He began to suffer from
a heart disorder from which he did not completely recover for several
years.
After the death of the mother, and the departure of the two older
brothers to establish homes of their own, the other members of the
Wright family were all the more drawn together. Whatever one of them
was doing interested all. And all--especially Wilbur--did much reading.
Two groups of books were in the home, one in Bishop Wright’s study
upstairs, and another, used by the family, downstairs in the living
room. Nearly all the books in the father’s library were “very serious,”
but Wilbur often dipped into them, though the father made no effort
to direct or control anyone’s reading. Downstairs, however, were the
books that both Wilbur and Orville liked best. These included a set of
Washington Irving’s works, both Grimm’s and Andersen’s fairy tales,
Plutarch’s _Lives_, a set of the _Spectator_, a set of Addison’s
essays, Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_, a set of Sir Walter Scott,
Gibbon’s _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, Green’s history of
England, Guizot’s _France_, an incomplete set of Nathaniel Hawthorne,
and a set in which was Marey’s _Animal Mechanism_. Here also were a
set of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ and _Chambers’ Encyclopedia_.
The _Britannica_ was an edition of the late 70’s and the _Chambers’
Encyclopedia_ was an earlier edition. Though Wilbur was the great
reader, Orville was not far behind him. He was fascinated by scientific
articles in the encyclopedia almost from the time he learned to read.
Wilbur and Orville from time to time contributed to the family comfort
in a substantial way. They built a spacious front porch, and all the
lathe work for the posts they did themselves. Then they remodeled the
interior of the house, changing the arrangement of the rooms. Other
members of the family felt as much pride in such handiwork as if they
had done it themselves.
More than their sturdy, intelligent, pioneer ancestry, it was probably
the kind of home they lived in that had most to do with what the
younger brothers were later to achieve. Orville expressed that with
deep conviction many years afterward. A friend of his had remarked
to him: “Even though what you accomplished was without the idea of
making money, the fact remains that the Wright brothers will always be
favorite examples of how American lads with no special advantages can
get ahead.”
“But,” said Orville seriously, “that isn’t true. Because, you see, we
_did_ have special advantages.”
“What special advantages do you mean?”
“Simply that we were lucky enough to grow up in a home environment
where there was always much encouragement to children to pursue
intellectual interests; to investigate whatever aroused curiosity. In a
different kind of environment our curiosity might have been nipped long
before it could have borne fruit.”
III
PRINTING--AND BICYCLES
At the age of twelve, while living in Richmond, Indiana, Orville
Wright became interested in wood engravings. His curiosity had been
stirred by seeing some woodcuts by Timothy Cole and T. Johnson in the
_Century_ magazine. Wondering how the cuts were made he began to search
the encyclopedia and one or two other books that told a little about
the technique used. He then decided that he might be able to make
some woodcuts himself if he had a suitable tool--and he went ahead to
fashion such a tool from the spring of an old pocket-knife. (The next
Christmas, Wilbur gave him a set of engraving tools.)
After trying his hand at his first few woodcuts, Orville naturally
wished to make prints from them, and for this purpose he used a
press his father had for copying letters. Today seldom seen, the
old-fashioned letter-press consisted of two horizontal metal plates
that could be forced close together by turning a little circular handle
at the top of a threaded rod attached to the upper plate. One’s letter
was moistened and placed next to a thin tissue sheet in a record
book which went between the plates of the press. Under pressure, a
copy of the letter was transferred to the tissue. Such a press was a
fascinating device for a boy to play with. Indeed, Orville had used
it for other purposes than that for which it was intended. It had also
served him as a vise. And now it worked fairly well for making proofs
from his woodcuts.
It was at about this time that the Wright family returned to Dayton
from Richmond, and Orville renewed close relations with his old
chum, Ed Sines. To his delight he found that young Sines was already
interested in printing. He had a small press, obtained by trading a
file, covering more than a year, of a boys’ magazine called _Golden
Days_. This press was little more than a toy, capable of printing only
one narrow line at a time, and the boys were never able to make much
use of it. But, nevertheless, they immediately formed the printing firm
of Sines & Wright.
At the beginning of the partnership of Sines & Wright, their printing
establishment was in a corner of the Sines kitchen. Ed’s mother summed
up the situation there when one day she noticed an envelope addressed
to “Messrs. Sines & Wright,” from a type foundry. “It must be for you,”
she said to the partners, “for you certainly _are_ a pair of messers.”
Interested as they were in printing, Ed Sines and Orville had time for
other hobbies. One of these was a telegraph line they rigged up between
their homes. For years Wilbur Wright referred to it as “the first
wireless telegraph,” because the boys used to shout the messages back
and forth to verify whatever they clicked out on the keys.
It soon became evident that Orville had printers’ ink in his blood.
This printing hobby was more than a passing fancy. His father was
impressed by the boy’s persistence in trying to use inadequate
equipment. The father knew that two of his older sons, Wilbur and
Lorin, had recently had a chance to trade a boat they had made, now
seldom used, for a small printing press. If they would make that trade,
he suggested, and donate the press to Orville, then he would buy for
the youngster twenty-five pounds of brevier type. This deal was made.
The new press would print anything up to 3 by 4½ inches.
As the Sines kitchen was not quite the ideal location for their
printing plant, Orville arranged for quarters in a “summer kitchen,”
not often used, at the Wright home.
It now occurred to Messrs. Sines & Wright that it might be a good idea
to print a newspaper for the benefit of their eighth grade classmates.
They called it _The Midget_. Because of the limited capacity of their
press, the paper was necessarily small, two narrow columns wide and
four and one-half inches long. Most of the items in it were put
directly into type, as they thought of them, and not from previously
prepared copy. They found that the four pages they had planned entailed
a surprising amount of work and to reduce this they put nothing on
page three except “Sines & Wright,” twice, diagonally across the page,
in script type. After they had printed about one hundred copies for
distribution, Orville’s father saw one of these and immediately placed
a ban on the whole issue. He insisted that the boys had not done
themselves justice in slighting that third page. Readers of the paper,
he said, might get the impression that the publishers were lazy or
shiftless.
In a way, this suppression of the issue came almost as a relief,
for the publishers had begun to feel misgivings about one somewhat
daring item they had taken the liberty of printing. It was about their
teacher, Miss Jennings, who was a strict disciplinarian. The item read:
“Next week we propose to publish one of Miss Jennings’ famous lectures
before the pupils of the Intermediate School on the Inherent Wickedness
of School Children.”
Maybe, they reflected, it was just as well that _The Midget_ was not to
be distributed. Miss Jennings might take the item as good clean fun,
but, on the other hand, she might raise a rumpus.
Before long the partners had an opportunity to buy a quantity of
display type for $2, and then they began trying to establish themselves
in the job-printing business. They set up their headquarters in
the Wright barn, though on cold days they were likely to do their
typesetting on a table in the Wright dining-room. Neighborhood
storekeepers gave them a few orders for printing, and the firm began
to take on airs. They employed Forrest Whitfield, a neighbor boy, as
printer’s devil. He commanded a weekly wage of fifteen cents.
All was going well until one day they received an order from a man who
wished to pay for his printing not in money but in popcorn. He assured
them that this popcorn, on the cob, was worth more than the $2 the
printing would have cost. But before deciding if they should accept the
popcorn in payment, the partners prudently went to a grocer to get an
estimate of its value. Sure enough, it was worth $2, and the grocer
offered to buy it from them at that price.
Now Orville saw greater opportunities opening before them. With a
liquid capital of $2, they could buy more type, do a greater variety
of printing, and thus have more fun. But Ed Sines thought there was
such a thing as over-extension of plant and equipment. Why not just
divide their popcorn and _eat_ it? Each was so uncompromising in his
convictions that there was only one thing to do: one must buy out the
other and they would dissolve the partnership. Inasmuch as Orville
already owned the press they were using and most of the type, it
seemed logical that he should be the buyer. By paying his share of the
popcorn he was able to take over his partner’s interest without much
cash outlay. Thenceforth, when they worked together, as from time to
time they continued to do, Ed Sines was no longer co-proprietor but an
employee.
At about this time, something set Orville to thinking of how
interesting it would be to print circus bills. He wished some of his
friends would organize a circus. Then he could do their printing. The
idea seemed worth promoting. He went to the Truxell boys, and Fred
LaRue, neighbors up the street, and convinced them that they had just
the kind of abilities to organize and present a wonderful circus--one
that would make a great hit with all the kids. The result of this talk
was The Great Truxell Bros. & LaRue Show. Orville refused to accept any
payment for printing the handbills and tickets of admission to the big
show. The fun of doing it was all the reward he wanted.