The Bishop's Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright

by Crouch, Tom D.

  The area was still popularly known as Miami City then, although the name had officially been changed to West Dayton when the city annexed the neighborhood in 1869. West Dayton lay on the far side of the Miami, in a great bend of the river just below the point where Wolf Creek empties into the larger stream.

  This was a streetcar suburb, the result of a classic pattern of urban expansion that would change the face of cities across America. The West Side had begun to blossom in 1869 when W. P. Huffman and H. S. Williams established the Dayton Street Railway. Both men had extensive real estate investments in the city, Huffman in the populated eastern section of town and Williams across the river on the West Side. The two entrepreneurs scarcely expected to make a great deal of money from streetcar fares. Rather, they hoped that the availability of cheap transportation would increase the value of their landholdings, and encourage the sale of new lots and homes in outlying areas to workmen previously forced to live within walking distance of the industrial and commercial core of the city.

  The venture was particularly important for Williams. On February 27, 1868, he had recorded the platting of “a new addition to Miami City” in the Montgomery County deed books. The new plat centered on a large tract of land south of West Third Street, an area left undeveloped because of its distance from downtown Dayton.

  The horse-car line was extended over the bridge and down the length of Third Street by the end of 1869. As Williams and Huffman had hoped, stores and shops sprang up along the main thoroughfares, with residential areas appearing a block or two back from the business district. Real estate values soared, and, as one local historian noted, “the proprietors [of the streetcar line] were astonished when it was found that from the first the traffic paid a profit on the investment.”1

  Unlike the modern developer who packages subdivisions complete with finished houses, utilities, streets, and shopping centers, nineteenth-century speculators like Williams were content simply to chop the land up into small urban lots for sale to individual builders. Quite often, smaller-scale proprietors would buy several lots, hoping for a quick rise in land values; a suburban lot might pass through several hands before a house was actually constructed on it.

  The early history of the house at 7 Hawthorn Street is typical. On May 4, 1868, John A. Francis purchased lot 111 of the Williams tract, along with several others, from the proprietor for $300. Six months later Francis sold this lot to Anna Manning for $350. Anna and her husband, Dayton carpenter James Manning, held the land for over a year before beginning construction of a house sometime in the early spring of 1869. Milton bought it before the work was finished.2

  In time, West Dayton, like so many other suburbs of its kind, developed a character all its own. Officially part of the city of Dayton, it nevertheless remained somewhat isolated by the Miami. The residents announced that they were citizens of West Dayton. They organized campaigns urging their neighbors to patronize local businesses, and to join West Side clubs and civic organizations.

  Hawthorn, a block south of Third and Williams, and half a block east on Fourth, was a typical West Side residential street. Most of the houses were newly constructed by small-scale speculators like the Mannings, or individual workmen who purchased lots and built their own inexpensive homes. The sudden availability of reasonable housing drew working-class citizens into the area. Milton Wright’s neighbors were carpenters, day laborers, wagon makers, foundry workmen, bookkeepers, seamstresses, house painters, salesmen, clerks, laundresses, machinists, firemen, and stenographers. The census records covering Hawthorn and the surrounding streets reveal that Milton, one other clergyman, and a physician were the only professional men living in the area in 1890.3

  While the Wrights were by no means rich, they were wealthy enough by the standards of Hawthorn Street. Milton’s salary had increased from $900 a year as a presiding elder and circuit preacher to $1,200–1,500 as an editor. In addition, his travel costs and related expenses were covered by special collections taken up by the congregations he visited. The real estate investments of the previous decade were now yielding $40 to $60 a month in rents plus money from the sale of crops grown on both farms. By the turn of the century, oil had been discovered on the Indiana land, further increasing the family income.4

  Milton Wright was forty-three years old when the family came to 7 Hawthorn. His wife Susan was forty, and four months pregnant. Their sons—Reuchlin, Lorin, and Wilbur—were ten, eight, and four at the time.

  Twins, Otis and Ida, had been born in the Second Street house on March 7, 1870. Ida died at birth; Otis lived only one month and two days. The fact that both Milton and Susan had seen brothers and sisters, as well as the children of friends and neighbors, die in infancy made their own loss no less traumatic. Milton would continue to honor the twins’ birthday for over a quarter of a century.

  Orville, the sixth child, was born in the upstairs front bedroom at 7 Hawthorn Street on August 19, 1871. As usual, Milton had chosen a distinctive first name, in this case honoring Orville Dewey, a Unitarian minister whom he admired.

  Katharine, the youngest child and only surviving daughter, was born precisely three years to the day after Orville. Variant spellings of her name were common on both sides of the family. The choice of Katharine suggests that her parents wanted to commemorate the family name while giving this child the same sense of distinction as their sons.

  Milton kept precise records of the development of his younger children, just as he had of the older boys. Orville, he noted, began to walk when he was a year old, and Katharine at ten months.

  The West Side was a good place for children to grow up. The neighborhood was expanding rapidly, but there were still open “commons” where Reuch, Lorin, and their friends could stage an impromptu game of “one old cat” or “town ball.” “Fox,” a variant of hide-and-seek played over several city blocks, was another favorite. A West Side contemporary of the older Wright boys recalled that the smaller children, including young Wilbur, had to agree to be “it” if they wanted to play.

  The Wright youngsters faced the usual childhood problems. Wilbur became lost one morning when Reuch and Lorin abandoned him on the way home from Sunday School in order to go swimming. Thereafter, he developed a standard response when threatened by his brothers—“I’ll squall.” It remained a catch phrase in the family for years.5

  His older brothers also introduced him to the fine art of rolling grapevine cigars. The three of them were lighting up behind the woodpile on Second Street one day in 1870 when Wilbur burned his fingers and dropped the match into a pile of shavings. The result was a “lively blaze.”6

  Orville, in turn, did his best to burn down the Hawthorn Street house. He and Ed “Jamsie” Sines, his best friend from down the block, built a fire against the back fence that threatened to burn out of control. Three-year-old Katharine saved the day by running for her mother. Orville’s first biographer, John R. McMahon, reported in 1930: “He still likes to make and see fires, the larger the better.” Recalling these incidents in a letter to Reuchlin many years later, Milton remarked that “Fire departments can sometimes be useful.”7

  Drawing on his own experience as a younger brother, Wilbur delighted in teasing Orville and Katharine. He taunted his brother with nonsense phrases based on the youngster’s mispronunciation of words until Orville came running after him with a rock. Katharine, he discovered, could be made to cry with the crook of a finger, or a grimace.

  Milton took justifiable pride in his success as a disciplinarian. “I governed them,” he told a reporter who asked about the early behavior of his famous sons. “They were pretty good boys, but mischievous. I had little trouble with them.”8

  There would be a few spankings for the really serious offenses. Orville once attempted to escape a whipping by hiding in the cellar. Both boys protested that they did not deserve the punishment meted out for throwing rocks at a passing carriage. Wilbur received his last switching at the age of twelve for hitching his sled onto a passing wag
on.

  But if there were occasional disagreements among the children, and a need for discipline, there was also much affection in this family. Milton and Susan were warm, loving, and protective parents, who encouraged a close relationship between their children. As in any group of brothers and sisters born over a thirteen-year period, the bonds were especially strong between those children who were closest in age. Reuch and Lorin, eldest sons, were particularly close, as were Orville and Katharine, the two youngest.

  Wilbur was in every sense the middle child. Four and a half years younger than Lorin, he was the tag-along little brother. In high school he tended to draw his friends from an older circle met through Reuch and Lorin. He was the youngest member of a local men’s club otherwise composed entirely of his elder brothers’ classmates.

  Four years older than Orville, Wilbur took his own responsibilities seriously. He told Orv stories, taught him to build kites, and served as an unofficial guide and adviser to his gang of friends. At the same time, he was careful to maintain a respectable distance from childish goings-on.9

  In later years Wilbur and Orville would point to a very strong relationship stretching far back into their childhood. In the will prepared in May 1912 shortly before his death, Wilbur stressed that the two had been “associated … in all hopes and labors, both of childhood and manhood.”10 And on another occasion he wrote: “From the time we were little children, my brother Orville and myself lived together, played together, worked together, and, in fact, thought together. We usually owned all of our toys in common, talked over our thoughts and aspirations so that nearly everything that was done in our lives has been the result of conversations, suggestions, and discussions between us.”11

  Those words have been cited time and again to illustrate the lifelong bond between the two brothers. In fact, Wilbur was overstating their relationship as children in order to underscore the importance of the full partnership that they enjoyed as adults. As boys they were as close, and as far apart, as any brothers separated by a four-year difference in age. They would scarcely begin to bridge that gulf in a serious way until 1889, the year in which Orville left high school and Wilbur emerged from a period of extended illness and depression.

  Katharine’s relationship with her brothers was far more subtle, but no less important. She was especially close to Orville. He was the one who pulled her about the neighborhood in his wagon, protected her, and insisted that his own friends include her in their games.

  When the brothers were away from home in later years, Wilbur tended to write to his father. Orville, far more often, directed his letters to Katharine. They are charming letters, flecked with warmth and humor. Within the family circle, Orville was generally regarded as being much less articulate than his brother, yet his letters to Katharine are among the clearest and most human documents among the thousands of pieces of Wright family correspondence.

  In childhood, both Orville and Katharine looked up to Wilbur as their big brother. As adults, they enjoyed a close personal relationship based on the foundation of mutual concern, support, and respect that had been laid when they were very young. The three became allies and confidants—closer to one another than to anyone else in the world.

  The importance of early experience in forging the depth of affection and bonding that they enjoyed as adults can be seen in something as simple as the use, throughout their lifetimes, of private childhood nicknames. They were Will, Orv, and Kate to their friends, even their father. In letters to one another, however, Wilbur would always be Ullam, short for Jullam, the German equivalent of William. Orville was Bubbo, or Bubs, as close as Wilbur could come to saying “brother” at the time of Orville’s birth. Katharine was Swes, or Sterchens, both affectionate diminutives for Schwesterchen, German for “little sister.” A close observer of the family once commented that “such nicknames were spoken in fondness and perhaps expressed a jealous affection within a family circle inclusive and aloof from the world.”12

  The early years in Dayton were happy and successful ones for Milton. By 1873, after four years editing The Religious Telescope, he had cemented his position as the leading spokesman of the conservative cause within the United Brethren Church.

  He was a good editor, who refused to employ the official weekly as a weapon against those who disagreed with him. As one church historian noted: “He always aimed to give those of differing opinions from his own their full share of space proportionate to the numbers they represented….”13 At the same time, he had no intention of advancing the Liberal cause. “My idea of a church paper,” he wrote, “is not one that panders to false tastes, sinful weaknesses, and by stimulating good fellowship with all things, rises into a popularity not unlike that of many secular papers. Jesus did not thus pander; the Bible does not; but the unscrupulous politician or editor does.”14

  Far from attempting to negotiate a compromise that might have made him more popular within the church, Milton Wright had become a national leader of the dwindling anti-Masonic movement. He attended the first meeting of a National Christian Association Opposed to Secret Societies in Pittsburgh in 1868, and delivered a major address to the National Anti-Secrecy Association at Cincinnati in 1872. His remarks at the 1875 meeting of that organization were reprinted in full in the Pittsburgh papers and the Christian Cynosure, a National Christian Association paper. His speech to the State Anti-Secrecy Society of Illinois in 1878 was also widely reprinted.15

  Milton spoke out on other issues, too. He attended the National Temperance Convention in 1868–69, was present at the Christian Amendment Convention in Cincinnati, and argued forcibly for women’s rights. By 1877 he was well on his way to becoming the most visible United Brethren clergyman since Otterbein, and the most outspoken.

  The Radicals approached the General Conference of 1873 apprehensively. As they feared, the Liberals came to the meeting, which opened in Dayton on May 15, with an expanded program of reforms. In addition to relaxing the traditional attitude toward secret societies, they now suggested that representation to the General Conference be expanded to include lay delegates, as well as presiding elders. They also sought to institute a system of proportional representation to the General Conferences. This meant that the local conferences would no longer come to the quadrennial meetings as equals. Those conferences with the largest number of churches would dominate.

  Milton was not confident that the conservatives would win if matters came to a vote. Rather than testing their strength, the Radicals resorted to a parliamentary gambit. The Constitution of 1841 specified that a vote of at least two thirds “of the society” was required to amend any provision of the original document. The conservatives argued that the phrase referred to the entire church membership, not simply to the delegates attending the General Conference. They were successful—action on the proposed changes would be postponed for another four years. In addition, Milton Wright was reelected to the post of editor.16

  Over the next four years the Radicals redoubled their efforts to buttress the conservative position. Milton remained the unquestioned leader of the party. He argued the case in the editorial pages of The Religious Telescope, and traveled thousands of miles carrying his message to as many individual congregations and local conference meetings as possible.

  The Radical campaign succeeded. Delegates to the General Conference of 1877 not only rejected the Liberal proposals out of hand, but incorporated a much stronger statement on secret societies into the church Discipline.17

  Milton Wright rode the crest of this last burst of conservative enthusiasm to election as a bishop of the church in 1877. He was charged with responsibility for the West Mississippi District, composed of fifteen separate local conferences stretching from the Mississippi to the Rockies. Over the next four years he would help to organize and attend a grand total of fifty-seven local conferences, traveling six to eight thousand miles a year. In addition, he organized special religious meetings and revivals throughout the area, gave speeches, sermons, and address
es, as well as attending to the purely administrative details of his office.

  The family remained in Dayton for a year after Milton’s election, but the additional travel proved too burdensome for the new bishop. In June 1878 they put the house at 7 Hawthorn Street up for rent and moved to a home on Iowa Street, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Two years later, in 1880, Milton built a new home in Adair, Iowa.18

  The children adapted quickly to life in Cedar Rapids. The place was very much like Dayton. The Cedar River divided the town, just as the Miami separated Dayton from the West Side. There were fewer trees, and the prairie countryside had a different look to it, but down by the rapids which gave the town its name, or out among the rolling hills, there were still plenty of places to intrigue an adventurous seven-year-old like Orville.

  Milton once said of his youngest son that “enthusiasm always made him a leader among boys. Happily,” he continued, “his leadership was never toward vice.” Soon after arriving in Cedar Rapids, Orville was in command of an “army” of fifteen or twenty boys. Wilbur, at eleven, was drafted into service as a strategic consultant, basing plans for the forthcoming campaign on his reading of Plutarch.19

  “Orville loved to tell his mother of his army and its progress,” Milton recalled. “And as he did so, placing his hands on the seat of a chair, he would punctuate his narrative by his heels flying into the air. It is a wonder that overenthusiastic political meetings have never learned that method of punctuation and emphasis, for it is the natural language of exhilaration.”20

  Orville’s exhilaration, his incessant curiosity, and his mother’s apparently boundless patience are apparent in the earliest letter that has survived from any of the children.

  April 1, 1881