The Wright Brothers

by David McCullough

  Octave Chanute was astonished by what Wilbur had to report. “It is perfectly marvelous to me how quickly you get results with your testing machine,” he wrote. “You are evidently better equipped to test the endless variety of curved surfaces than anybody has ever been.” When Wilbur apologized for writing to him at such length, Chanute assured him his letters were always too brief.

  The work was unlike anything the brothers had ever undertaken and the most demanding of their time and powers of concentration. They were often at it past midnight. As said later in the Aeronautical Journal of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain, “Never in the history of the world had men studied the problem with such scientific skill nor with such undaunted courage.”

  In December came another voice of scientific authority denouncing, as Simon Newcomb had, the dream of flight as a total sham, the article appearing in the greatly respected North American Review, and written by no less than the chief engineer of the United States Navy, Rear Admiral George Melville. “A calm survey of certain natural phenomena leads the engineer to pronounce all confident prophecies for future success as wholly unwarranted, if not absurd. Where, even to this hour, are we to look for the germ of the successful flying machine? Where is the preparation today?”

  By late December, their experiments finished and feeling the pressure of economic necessity, the brothers turned to the production of the next season’s bicycles. As Charlie Taylor liked to stress, they had to keep the business going to pay for the experiments. Octave Chanute wrote to say how greatly he regretted their decision.

  For some time Chanute had been offering to provide financial help to the brothers, which they greatly appreciated but were unwilling to accept. “Practically all the expense of our aeronautical experiments lies in the time consumed and we do not wish to increase the temptation to neglect our regular business for it,” Wilbur wrote to him.

  What if some rich man were to provide $10,000 a year, Chanute asked, adding that he happened to know Andrew Carnegie. “Would you like for me to write to him?” Again Wilbur tactfully declined. Besides, he added, it seemed likely Carnegie was “too hardheaded a Scotchman to become interested in such a visionary pursuit as flying.”

  As he and Orville had no need to say, they knew full well the importance of what they had achieved with their “laboratory work.” They had done it together on their own, paying their own way, as they did everything, and they intended to keep going on their own.

  Not for another several months, until the spring of 1902, were they able to begin building a new glider based on all they had learned from the wind tunnel tests, for even with the help of Charlie Taylor, production and sales of their bicycles still demanded a great part of their time and attention.

  Word of what they were up to seems also to have been getting around in some circles and apparently with their approval if not at their own instigation. For on January 25, 1902, a short, unsigned notice appeared in the Dayton Daily News stating for the first time in any publication that two local “aeronautical experts” had demonstrated “to an absolute certainty that many of the theories heretofore advanced in flying machine circles may be cast to the four winds.

  These gentlemen are Wilbur and Orville Wright, cycle dealers and makers, who have experimented with marked success in [North] Carolina and who at present bid fair to revolutionize the work of experts in making tests of aerial navigation. . . .

  It would be fitting that Dayton should afford experiments which may lead to a complete solution to aerial navigation.

  This notice, carefully clipped from the paper by the brothers, or perhaps Katharine, would figure prominently at the beginning of a first scrapbook documenting their efforts.

  II.

  At the same time the family was facing a highly unpleasant situation involving Bishop Wright that put severe strain on them all, and Wilbur in particular. It was a burden he accepted without complaint, even as it required giving up days, eventually weeks of his time.

  The trouble had first taken root some fifteen years before, in the 1880s, when two contentious factions within the United Brethren Church struggled for control. The issue was mainly the church’s traditional anti-Masonic stance, one side holding firm to that position, the other arguing for acceptance of Freemasonry and its secret ways as one of the realities of the times and, not incidentally, as a clear means to increase church membership and revenues.

  Those in favor of welcoming Masons to church membership were the so-called Liberals. Those opposed, the Radicals, were led by Milton Wright, never one afraid to speak out for what he believed, who, even then, had called on Wilbur to help write articles and editorials in response to attacks by the opposition.

  But the Liberals prevailed. The Bishop lost his fight. His role in the church was reduced to virtually nothing. Undaunted, he continued with his travels as an itinerant preacher and in 1889, the year of Susan Wright’s death, he set about establishing a new church to be known as the Old Constitution Church.

  Time passed. Then, in 1901, an investigation initiated by Bishop Wright found the official in charge of publications for the Old Constitution Brethren, the Reverend Millard Keiter, had been making use of church money for his personal expenses, to the amount of nearly $7,000.

  In February 1902, the Bishop asked Wilbur to examine the church account books, and from his review Wilbur concluded the Reverend Keiter had indeed helped himself to church funds to pay for his own insurance premiums, personal clothing, and part of the construction cost of his home. But when the church’s board of trustees met to review the charges against Keiter, it was decided, despite the evidence, that any discrepancies had resulted from carelessness, not fraud.

  “My chief regret,” Wilbur wrote to his father, “is that the strain and worry which you have borne for fifteen years past shows no sign of being removed. . . . It would seem however that the fight only increases in intensity.” Wilbur also had no doubt that the fight must go on.

  The question of whether officials shall rob the church and trustees deceive the church for fear of injuring collections, must be settled now for all time. In the long run nothing can be gained financially by deceit. To cheat the people by lying reports is more dishonest than Keiter’s stealing, and so far as church interests are concerned, the penalty will be greater.

  In mid-March, Wilbur took the train to Huntington, Indiana, for further examination of the publishing house records and returned home two days later to assure his father that Keiter’s books and papers were “very crooked.”

  With strong encouragement from Wilbur, the Bishop decided to do something on his own. He and Wilbur spent a full day preparing “an exposé of Keiter’s defalcations,” as the Bishop wrote in his diary, and the day after, Orville finished typewriting the final tract.

  Without waiting for approval from his church, the Bishop accused Keiter of criminal conduct. Keiter was brought to trial, but not convicted. Sentiment within the church began to turn against the Bishop for having overplayed his hand. Old friends, he told Katharine, spoke of him behind his back as an “egotist.” Then in May, Millard Keiter filed formal charges against the Bishop, accusing him of libel.

  Wilbur described the situation as “absolutely inconceivable, incomprehensible, and incredible.” He had not stopped examining Keiter’s books and was, as he wrote, “finding new instances of his stealing every few days.” Worn down and filled with worry, his father had trouble sleeping.

  The charges and countercharges continued on into summer. On August 15, Wilbur issued a tract in defense of his father.

  When my father and myself came to examine the charges [against the Bishop] carefully, we at once saw that the whole thing was a mere sham. The charges were so trivial as to be laughable. . . .

  Although Mr. Keiter and his followers are on general principles opposed to investigations and trials, nevertheless they saw some advantages in instituting a pretended prosecution against Bishop Wright. . . .

  The institution of even a bog
us case would afford opportunity for the wide circulation of reports that Bishop Wright’s own character was under a cloud.

  That day in a letter to his father, who was back on the road again, Wilbur wrote to assure him “things are moving nicely” and not to worry. Katharine followed with another letter to tell him Wilbur and Orville were so convinced things would turn out right that they were talking of leaving for Kitty Hawk the following week and that she thought it past time they got away for a while. “Will is thin and nervous and so is Orv. They will be all right when they get down to the sand where the salt breezes blow. . . . They think that life at Kitty Hawk cures all ills.”

  By late August, the brothers had reached the final stage in building their new glider—stitching yards of white Bride-of-the-West muslin for the wing covering—which they carried on in the backyard at 7 Hawthorn Street, and so inspiring much talk and speculation in the neighborhood. “Some say the boys just go camping and they make their own tents,” said one neighbor. “Others say they are trying to fly. I don’t believe they’re that foolish.”

  “Will spins the sewing machine around by the hour,” wrote Katharine, “while Orv squats around marking the places to sew.”

  On August 26 with everything needed for Machine No. 3 packed and crated for shipment, the brothers departed on their third expedition to Kitty Hawk, leaving it to Katharine and Charlie Taylor to carry on with the bicycle store.

  She was particularly pleased to see Wilbur off—it was the best thing in the world for him to go away, Katharine told her father. “He was completely unnerved. When he gets a thing on his mind, he thinks of it continually.”

  She also wanted her father to know she was in the fight with him every bit as much as the brothers. “We’ll never stop fighting now, Pop, until we’ve shown those rascals up.”

  Soon she had more to contend with. Charlie Taylor, as she informed the brothers, was making her “too weary for words.” The man claimed to know everything about everything. “I despise to be at the mercy of the hired man.” Thankfully the school year had begun, her classes had resumed, and she was now making an unprecedented $25 a week.

  Things would indeed turn out right for the Bishop in the end. Two years later, at a church conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1904, he would be completely exonerated by a two-thirds majority. Writing to a niece a few years later, the Bishop said of Millard Keiter, “His former friends have become convinced of his unworthy character, and he has gone to Tennessee as a timberland speculator.”

  In all, the continuing worry and frustrations involved in defending the Bishop’s honor, the countless hours consumed, had brought the family closer together than ever, resolved to be ever wary of those of “unworthy character.”

  III.

  She would just have to get used to some of Charlie Taylor’s peculiarities, Orville told Katharine in his first letter to her since reaching Kitty Hawk, then went on to say the weather there was fine, that he and Wilbur had been assembling the machine and were nearly ready to start testing. He imagined, he said, that by the time she received the letter she would be back at school teaching again, and he asked her to send a list of her “victims.” “I like to see someone else catch it besides us.”

  By the second week of September word from Kitty Hawk grew more extensive, as both brothers took time to fill her in with news of the kind she most liked to hear, no more trouble from the mosquitoes and that they were sprucing up their quarters at Kill Devil Hills with such “royal luxuries” as white oilcloth on the dining table and burlap upholstery on the dining chairs. Orville’s letters, which delighted Katharine especially, refute any idea that he had no gift for writing and express how much he did not want “little sister” to feel left out.

  Most enjoyable to her was a rendition from Orville of an all-out pursuit of an uncommonly resourceful mouse that kept prowling about the kitchen and thereby provided the only excitement of the moment.

  “He met with a rather warm reception the other night when he undertook to promenade on Will’s bed,” Orville began, “[and] got tossed a good deal . . . in a blanket, until finally he escaped.

  We found him snugly wrapped up in our carpet this afternoon. We had a merry chase all about the building, inside and out. The large cracks in the floor making it easy for him to get in or out in a hurry when necessary. But as there were two of us, one with a stick and one with a gun, one above and one below the floor, his chances of escape were beginning to look rather shaky. Finally, he nestled up in a corner below the floor to take time to get a breath, when I blazed away at him with the gun. The mark of the bullet is in the corner right back of where he stood, nevertheless the little beastie turned around and calmly walked away and I in my astonishment just stood there and watched him go.

  The standard of living at Kitty Hawk had been greatly enhanced. Damage done to the camp by storms in their absence had required immediate attention, but they also saw to considerably more. The kitchen was “immensely improved,” and they slept now in new, more comfortable beds rigged up in the rafters. They hammered up battens to seal off the cracks between the boards the whole length and width of the building. They had sunk a deeper well that produced better water. Best of all, they had devised a bicycle that ran far better over sand than they could have hoped for, so a round-trip to Kitty Hawk now took only one hour, instead of three on foot.

  Little if any of what the brothers did went unnoticed by the local residents, who by now, as John T. Daniels said, had “learned to love ’em,” and in no small part because they “could do anything they put their hands to.

  They built their own camp; they took an old carbide can and made a stove of it; they took a bicycle and geared the thing up so that they could ride it on the sand. They did their own cooking and washing and they were good cooks too.

  “There are other improvements too numerous to mention, and no Huffaker and no mosquitoes,” Wilbur reported to George Spratt, who was to join them again.

  This time, too, Orville was keeping far better day-to-day diary records of just how hard they were working.

  Monday, September 8. Finally began work on machine. . . . Completed frame of upper surface [wing] ready for ribs.

  Tuesday, September 9. Worked 8 hours on machine. Fastened ribs to frame and put on cloth.

  Wednesday, September 10. Worked about 51/2 hours each, tacking and sewing on cloth. . . . Surface complete except part of covering to rear spar.

  Thursday, September 11. Completed covering of rear spar. Erected poles for testing angles at various velocities of wind. . . . Began work on lower surface in afternoon. Spliced spars, and fastened on end bows, ready for attaching ribs.

  Friday, September 12. Worked eight hours each on machine. Put on ribs and cloth. Took upper surface on Big [Kill Devil] Hill a little before noon. Find that much better results are found by walking the machine.

  Saturday, September 13. Finished lower surface. . . .

  Monday, September 15. Worked 10 hours each. . . .

  With each wing, or “surface,” measuring 32 by 5 feet this time, and a total wingspan therefore of 320 square feet, it was by far the largest glider yet built and, as Wilbur also told George Spratt, “an immense improvement over last year’s machine.”

  On September 19, they took it to a small hill and began flying it first as a kite and with “very satisfactory” results. After moving to Kill Devil Hills they made nearly fifty glides in three days—including manned flights—but cautiously. Even the longest flights were not much over 200 feet.

  Orville, too, was now gliding for the first time, and proudly so. Then only days later, he suddenly lost control and crashed. Luckily, he got out “without a bruise or a scratch,” but it was a clear reminder of just how dangerous it all was, and how suddenly things could go wrong.

  My brother [wrote Wilbur to Octave Chanute], after too brief practice with the use of the front rudder, tried to add the use of the wing-twisting [wing-warping] arrangement also, with the result that, while
he was correcting a slight rise in one wing, he completely forgot to attend to the front rudder, and the machine reared up and rose some twenty-five feet and sidled off and struck the ground. . . . We hope to have repairs made in a few days.

  Close to the end of September brother Lorin Wright walked into camp for an unexpected visit, and George Spratt appeared soon after. At the same time came a rare lull in the wind lasting several days.

  With all tests postponed, Lorin and Spratt went fishing, while Wilbur and Orville kept busy as usual, Wilbur also taking time to write an exuberant letter to his father to report how extremely well things were going. “We are in splendid health and having a fine time.” And yes, they were being “very careful.” Beyond that, he was proud to report, their new machine was a “very great improvement over anything anyone has built. . . . Everything is so much more satisfactory that we now believe that the flying problem is really nearing its solution.”

  The letter was dated October 2. That night, as Orville later told the story, discussion in camp on aeronautical theory went on at such length that he indulged himself in more coffee than usual. Unable to sleep, he lay awake thinking about ways to achieve an even better system of control when suddenly he had an idea: the rear rudder, instead of being in a fixed position, should be hinged—movable.

  In the morning at breakfast, he proposed the change, but not before giving Lorin a wink, a signal to watch Wilbur for one of his customary critical responses. Wilbur, as George Spratt once told Octave Chanute, was “always ready to oppose an idea expressed by anybody,” ready to “jump into an argument with both sleeves rolled up.” And as Wilbur himself would explain to Spratt, he believed in “a good scrap.” It brought out “new ways of looking at things,” helped “round off the corners.” It was characteristic of all his family, Wilbur said, to be able to see the weak points of anything. This was not always a “desirable quality,” he added, “as it makes us too conservative for successful business men, and limits our friendships to a very limited circle.”