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

by Crouch, Tom D.

  The finished story shows how heavily the three men drew on their imagination to fill in the gaps. The problems began with the headline that flashed across the front page of the paper on the morning of December 18:

  FLYING MACHINE SOARS 3 MILES IN TEETH OF HIGH WIND OVER SAND HILLS AND WAVES AT KITTY HAWK ON CAROLINA COAST

  They added a six-bladed “underwheel” that pushed the machine up into the air; a second propeller moved it forward through the sky. The engine was suspended beneath the “navigator’s car,” which also featured a “huge fan-shaped rudder of canvas” that could be moved up or down and from side to side for control. Then there was the distance flown—three miles at an altitude of 60 feet. Fortunately, one of the onlookers had preserved a record of Wilbur’s first words after the conclusion of the flight.” ‘Eureka,’ he cried, as did the alchemist of old.”

  When the Associated Press declined Glennan’s offer to put the story on the wire, the editor sent queries to twenty-one newspapers asking if they would be interested in copying the piece. Five newspapers responded. Two of them, the New York American and the Cincinnati Enquirer, carried it in their morning editions. Perhaps inspired by the account in the morning Enquirer, the afternoon papers in Dayton took note of the flights for the first time. The Dayton Herald simply abbreviated the Norfolk piece. The Daily News was a bit more imaginative, if no more accurate. The story, carried in a section generally reserved for neighborhood news, was headlined: “DAYTON BOYS EMULATE GREAT SANTOS-DUMONT.”31

  It was an early indication of how friends and neighbors would react to the fact that two “local boys” had accomplished something beyond the wildest dreams of the world-famous Alberto Santos-Dumont.

  The Associated Press, having rejected Glennan’s story the evening before, now offered a 400-word abbreviated version to subscribers. Fantastic yarns began to appear on the back pages of newspapers across the nation. Wilbur and Orville, returning home from Kitty Hawk, found it difficult to understand how their careful plans for a low-key announcement to the press could have gone so wrong. Passing through the Chesapeake and Ohio depot in Huntington, West Virginia, early on the morning of December 23, they sent one last wire to Katharine: “Have survived perilous trip reported in papers. Home tonight.”32

  chapter 20

  THE PRAIRIE PATCH

  January~December 1904

  The family greeted its two heroes with quiet pride and little fanfare. Carrie, aware that Mr. Will and Mr. Orv had not had a decent meal in weeks, served porterhouse steaks and a fancy dessert on their first evening home, assuring them “there was more of everything in the kitchen.” She was not prepared for Orville’s unquenchable thirst for milk, however. He drank glass after glass, until Carrie began watering it down in the kitchen, certain that he would not notice. He did, and told Carrie he was “grieved” she would try to cheat him by dairying the milk. The story of the “dairied milk” remained a joke between them for the rest of their lives.1

  Christmas was especially festive that year. There was a dinner at Lorin’s, with presents for everyone. Wilbur and Orville presented a set of silver forks and pearl-handled steak knives to Katharine, and a two-inch micrometer to Charlie Taylor.

  They expected Charlie to put his gift to immediate use. The 1903 engine had been destroyed in the accident on December 17. “They wanted a new one built right away,” Charlie recalled. “They were always thinking of the next thing to do; they didn’t waste much time worrying about the past.”2

  Indeed, it was a time for decisions. “After several seasons,” Wilbur explained to an acquaintance,

  we found ourselves standing at a fork in the road. On the one hand we could continue playing with the problem of flying so long as youth and leisure would permit but carefully avoiding those features which would require continuous effort and the expenditure of considerable sums of money. On the other hand, we believed that if we would take the risk of devoting our entire time and financial resources we could conquer the difficulties in the path to success before increasing years impaired our physical ability. We finally decided to make the attempt but as our financial future was at stake [we] were compelled to regard it as a strict business proposition until such time as we had recouped ourselves.3

  Flight was no longer an obsessive hobby. They would turn the day-to-day operation of the bicycle shop over to Charlie and concentrate on the flying-machine business. The flights of December 17 were not the end of the quest, they lay somewhere in the middle. Frank Tunison’s comment was close to the mark: fifty-nine seconds in the air would not impress a skeptical world. If they were to enjoy a financial reward for all their work, they would have to produce a genuinely practical airplane.

  Work was under way on a new flying machine and engine by January 1, 1904. At the same time, the Wrights took steps to correct the ridiculous press reports arising from the Virginian-Pilot story. On January 5 they offered another release to the Associated Press, outlining precisely what had occurred on December 17. Newspapers across the nation and in Europe picked up the story. In addition, the account was sent to flying-machine enthusiasts in France and England, and the brothers asked Chanute to broadcast the news through his network of friends and correspondents.

  Reactions varied. Predictably, the level of interest was highest in France. Ferber wrote to Chanute on January 27, thanking him “heartily” for the news. The letter reflects Ferber’s extraordinary overconfidence, and indicates how little even the best-informed French enthusiasts knew about the problems that the Wrights had faced and overcome:

  I was at first quite annoyed at not having been able to take this first step myself. But now, just think that this success of Wright is doing me lots of good, and is much to my advantage. I believe that people are now saying: “Why, that Captain was not such a fool after all, as the other chap has met with success.” I would like to know whether Wright had already begun work on his motor last June, or whether it was the news that I was on the point of experimenting with one, which determined him to apply a motor himself?4

  Ferber did not want the members of the Aéro-Club to be discouraged by the Wrights’ success. “It is not as wonderful as they say,” he commented to Ernest Archdeacon. “The experiment is not as grand as we supposed, but it does represent a new situation…. I think we ought to unite our efforts.”5 Archdeacon unveiled a glider of his own in January, “exactly copied from that of the Wright brothers.” Constructed at the French military balloon and airship facility at Meudon, it was tested at the Aéro-Club’s Parc d’Aérostation at Saint-Cloud later that spring.

  Victor Tatin, a respected aeronautical pioneer, speaking at an Aéro-Club dinner-conference on February 4, reminded listeners that the reports from America were “very incomplete and often contradictory. In any case,” he insisted, “the problem cannot be considered as completely solved by the mere fact of someone having flown for less than a minute … under conditions with which we are not very well acquainted.”6

  Tatin chided Ferber, Archdeacon, and other Frenchmen who were “slavishly copying the American gliders,” and concluded with a call to arms:

  Must we one day read in history that aviation, born in France, only became successful thanks to the Americans; and that the French only obtained results by carefully copying them? For us, that would indeed be glorious! Have we not seen enough French inventions carried to completion by foreigners, such as the steam-engine, gas light, steamships, and many others? Alas, are we to add aviation to them? … The first flying machine journey must be made in France. We need only the determination. So let us go to work!

  Archdeacon rose to second Tatin:

  Despite various contradictions, and a fair number of exaggerated reports published in the newspapers, it seems unquestionably true that the Wrights have succeeded in making a flight of 266 meters…. It is certain, gentlemen, that the results obtained are considerable, and—I do not cease to repeat—we must hurry if we wish to catch up with the enormous advance made over us by the Americans.
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  Just nine days after the flight at Kitty Hawk, Augustus Herring wrote to the brothers suggesting that they form a three-way partnership, with himself as third shareholder. As the “true originator” of the Chanute-Herring two-surface glider of 1896, he maintained, he had already been offered a “substantial sum” for his rights in any future patent interference suit with the Wrights.7

  They ignored Herring’s “rascality.” It was an empty threat—Chanute and Herring had tried and failed to obtain an American patent for the 1896 glider. In any case, the only similarity between the glider and the Wright aircraft was the fact that all of them employed a modified Pratt truss to transform multiple wings into a beam structure.

  But the incident underscored the need to obtain patent protection. While Orville set to work on the construction of two new engines—one of them experimental, the other to power the 1904 airplane—Will turned to the patent problem. The examiner who had rejected their application in 1903 advised them to hire an experienced patent attorney. Two Dayton friends, John Kirby and Will Ohmer, directed Wilbur to just such a man, Harry A. Toulmin, Sr., a lawyer with offices in nearby Springfield, Ohio.

  The Wrights liked and trusted Toulmin immediately. Taking the original application as a starting point, he told them he could craft a broad, airtight patent that would stand the most severe test in the courts. He warned them at the outset that the process would take time, and advised saying as little as possible about their invention.

  That meant dealing with Chanute, who was already uneasy about the Wrights’ attitude toward publicity. Immediately after their return from Kitty Hawk, he suggested that they attend a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science to “give the … first scientific account of your performances.” Wilbur rejected the idea, adding that they were “giving no pictures nor descriptions of machine or methods at present.” “They have grown very secretive,” Chanute complained to Patrick Alexander several days later.8

  “I was somewhat puzzled by your telegram,” he wrote to Wilbur on January 20. “You talked while I was in camp of giving your performance, if successful, all publicity possible, and you knew I would not divulge the construction of your machine as I have never disclosed more than you yourself have published. Your telegram indicated a change of policy which you can more fully explain when I see you.”9

  The Wrights were wary of Chanute on several counts. In spite of his best intentions, he might release information of value to a rival. They were also concerned about the growing impression that he had played a major technical or financial role in their work. That concern was reflected in a single sentence in their Associated Press release: “All the experiments have been conducted at our own expense, without assistance from any individual or institution.”

  Chanute asked Wilbur to “please write me just what you had in mind concerning myself when you framed that sentence in that way.” Wilbur phrased a delicate response.

  The object of the statement … was to make clear that we stood on completely different ground from Prof. Langley, and were entirely justified in refusing to make our discoveries public property at this time. We had paid the freight and had a right to do as we pleased. The use of the word “any,” which you underscored, grew out of the fact that we found from articles in both foreign and American papers, and even in correspondence, that there was a somewhat general impression that our Kitty Hawk experiments had not been carried out at our own expense, &c. We thought it might save embarrassment to correct that promptly.10

  Wilbur was sending a subtle message of his own to Chanute. While they had not yet seen reports of his speech to the Aéro-Club, the Wrights suspected that Chanute had told the French that the Wrights were his pupils. That had to stop.

  Though neither party would admit it as yet, their relationship was already strained beyond hope of repair. Each saw the events of the past three years in a very different light. The Wrights knew that they alone had achieved a solution to the basic problems of mechanical flight. Their success was based on a series of fundamental breakthroughs. Simply put, they saw things that others missed, made correct decisions where others erred, and persevered when others lost faith.

  Chanute did not agree. He saw the Wrights as extraordinarily gifted mechanics who had put old ideas into new bottles. Their genius, he thought, was to be found in an ability to make other men’s ideas work. When he urged them to patent their mechanism, he was referring only to that combination of wires and pulleys that enabled them to flex a wing. The idea of flexing the wing, he believed, was not patentable.

  The Wrights sought a patent so broad that every other flying machine would infringe on it. The value of such a monopoly would be enormous. With no serious rivals in sight, there was no reason for undue haste. The wisest course of action was to follow Toulmin’s advice. They would continue working toward the production of a practical flying machine while guarding the secrets of their technology until the entire package, protected by an airtight patent, could be offered to a potential buyer—presumably a national government.

  Chanute predicted that the brothers would fail to obtain more than a very narrow patent, one easily circumvented. He urged them to unveil their invention immediately. There was a fortune to be made by entering prize competitions and staging demonstrations. He raised the issue during a visit to Dayton on January 22, arguing that the upcoming St. Louis Exposition would be the perfect place to begin.

  The Wrights toyed with the notion, traveling to St. Louis to inspect the flying field. It was never a serious possibility, however. Their new machine, as yet untested, would have to fly much farther than the 852 feet of 1903 to win any sort of prize. Moreover, it would be foolish to stage a public demonstration before they had a patent.

  Convinced that they were wrong, Chanute nevertheless accepted their decision. The question of business strategy was now added to the growing list of issues dividing them. Just before his death in 1910—at a time when the Wrights had achieved world fame and were involved in bitter patent fights—Chanute repeated his unyielding view: “Therefore it was that I told you … that you were making a mistake in abstaining from prize-winning contests while the public curiosity is so keen, and by bringing patent suits to prevent others from doing so. This is still my opinion and I am afraid, my friend, that your usually sound judgment has been warped by the desire for great wealth.”11

  The Wrights faced the spring of 1904 confidently. There would be no more trips to the isolated Outer Banks. They had always known that operations would have to be transferred closer to home at some point, so they could continue to work without the expense entailed by extended stays at Kitty Hawk.

  They chose Huffman Prairie as their flying field. The brothers came to this 100-acre cow pasture eight miles east of town early in the spring that year. Stepping off the DS & U trolley at a simple wooden platform labeled Simms Station, they climbed over the fence and walked out into the grass. They inspected the ground and studied the location of the trees and the newly installed telephone poles. A few months later, Wilbur offered a candid description of the place to Chanute:

  We are in a large meadow of about 100 acres. It is skirted on the west and north by trees. This not only shuts off the wind somewhat, but gives a slight downward trend. However, this is a matter we do not consider anything serious. The greater troubles are the facts that in addition to the cattle there have been a dozen or more horses in the pasture and as it is surrounded by barbwire fencing we have been at much trouble to get them safely away before making any trials. Also, the ground is an old swamp and is filled with grassy hummocks some six inches high, so that it resembles a prairie dog town.12

  Walking back to the platform to wait for the Dayton trolley, they decided that the field was far from perfect but it would do.

  Precisely why the Wrights chose Huffman Prairie is not clear. In the mid-1830s John Leonard Riddell, foremost collector of botanical specimens in the West, had discovered three new species at the Prairie. William Wer
thner, the science teacher at Dayton’s Central High School, led two generations of young people, including Orville and Katharine Wright, on field trips there. Orv loved that class, preserving a small notebook filled with plant descriptions and meticulous drawings of wildflowers as one of his few high school keepsakes.13

  Perhaps it was the memory of those trips that brought the Wrights back to Huffman Prairie. Any one of a dozen fields would have done as well, but Orville knew that the Prairie had two great advantages: it lay directly on the interurban rail line and was, at the same time, relatively isolated.

  Torrence Huffman, a West Side banker, was the owner. He knew the Wrights, and had seen the wild stories published in the Dayton papers over the last month or so describing goings-on with a flying machine somewhere down on the Carolina coast.

  A cautious man, he had little faith or confidence in the brothers. “They’re fools,” he told Dave Beard, the grizzled, sixty-one-year-old farmer who worked the land adjacent to Huffman Prairie for him on shares. Still, the field was empty most of the time, and when the Wrights asked for permission to use it, he consented, asking only that they drive the cows and horses pastured there outside the fence before doing any flying.14

  Soon the Wrights were at the Beards’ door, explaining that Mr. Huffman had given his permission to use the field across the Pike. They cut the tall grass with scythes, then set to work building a wooden shed in the far corner. By mid-April they were spending most of their time inside the shed, assembling the strange, winged contraption that was the 1904 airplane.

  When interviewed by reporters in later years, the Beards, like most of their old neighbors, had great difficulty describing the Wright machine. Amos I. Root, who roomed at the Beards when he drove his automobile down from Medina, Ohio, to watch the Wrights fly in 1904, thought that it resembled “a locomotive made of aluminum … with wings that spread twenty feet each way.” T. N. Waddell, an official of the U.S. Census Bureau, reported that it looked something like “a street car with the sides knocked out.” The engine, he noted, was “about the size of a waste paper basket.”15