Dayton, Ohio, June 5, 1909.
Capt. A. Hildebrant,
Berlin, Germany.
Dear Sir:
You did not quite understand my letter. It was General Ulysses S. Grant that I wrote of, and President Grover Cleveland, of whom I spoke. They were two presidents of our country, decended like myself from John Porter of Windsor (16_37) from whom I am also descended. Hence they are distant cousins of ours, and of each other.
My wife’s father was a regular German in his looks. He was born six miles west of Scleitz in Saxony, the southwest part, as you will see on any large map of Saxony. The family, of whom we never had any group picture, is as follows:
Milton Wright, born November 17, 1828, in Rush County, Indiana.
Susan Catharine (Koerner) Wright, born near Hillsboro, Virginia, April 30, 1831.
Reuchlin Wright, born in Grant County, Indiana, March 17, 1861.
Lorin Wright, born in Fayette County, Indiana, November 18, 1862.
(These two older brothers are still living, are married, and have lovely children—Reuchlin three, Lorin four, Reuchlin’s oldest married).
Wilbur Wright, born, in Henry county, Indiana, April 16, 1867.
Otis Wright and Ida Wright (twins) born April 24, 1870, in Dayton, Ohio.
(Without sickness or pain, they died at 13 and 18 days of age).
Orville Wright, born August 19, in Dayton, Ohio, 1871.
Katharine Wright, born in Dayton, Ohio, August 19, 1874.
They were all good children. And they are all of unimpeachable morals yet. Reuchlin is a deacon on the Congregational Church, in Tonganoxie, Kan. They are about equal in intellect, the others having had better education than the inventors. Katharine graduated in the Classical Course in Oberlin College, and teaches in Dayton High School. I am a traveling minister in the United Brethren in Christ, served several years as pastor, ten as presiding elder, eight as editor of our Church paper, and twenty-four as bishop. As bishop and editor I was elected by General Conference every four years, those offices being filled every four years by a ballot election. In filling my duties, I have visited all the states west of the River, and territories; and all states east of the Mississipi, except the six New England states and five others. In all I have traveled by rail, over two hundred thousand miles. My change of residence every two years must account for my three older children being born in three different counties in Indiana. Mrs. Wright, the sweetest spirit earth ever knew, died twenty years ago, in Dayton, July 4, 1889. From that on I raised the children, left to my care. All the children sprang to help their mother, but Wilbur cared for her, prolonged her life, and I gave him five hundred dollars for his incomparable care for her. [Hand-written note: He had no promise of reward.]
Their first interest in the art of flying, they date back to about the year 1879, when I brought home to them a Heliocoptere, a toy which could fly. Later on they began to watch Lilienthal, and followed him to his death, in the art of gliding. Their first active work began in the year 1900, when as a vacation, they built a gliding machine on the coast of North Carolina, and each year in the fall of the year, spent a few weeks there till in 1903, they attached a gasoline motor to it and flew, December 17th, four short flights. They flew against the wind and made at the longest only about a half mile, counting the velocity of the wind. In actual measurment considerably less than a half mile. The place of flight was on the sandy plain near Kill Devil Mills, in Dare County, four miles from Kitty Hawk in Cerrituck County. The following two summers and falls, they experimented at Simson’s(?) Station (a mere stopping place, on the Dayton and Springfield traction railroad, a perfectly level meadow ground) where they made a few miles flight, but in 1905, September, they flew as much as twenty-four miles, at one flight. They flew no more for part of two years, but began negotiations for the sale of their invention. In 1908, they engaged to a Company in France, to sell their rights, and sold to the United states government a single machine at twenty-five thousand dollars, they in each case, to perform certain exploits with the machine. Time crowding on them to meet engagements, they separated in June 1908, Wilbur going to France, and Orville remaining to complete at Ft. Myer (near Washington) the United States contract. Of Wilbur’s scalding his arm in regulating his machine, and his successful trial, before his arm was well, all have read. But Orville having his machine ready at Ft. Myer, went far ahead of Wilbur, but an easily avoided defect in his machine, having under strain caused friction between the propeller of his machine and a wire, and—far worst of all broke the management of the tail of his machine, a most important part—he was on a machine in the air over one hundred feet high, with his control of the machine rendered useless, and after sinking to about seventy-five feet, his machine descended vertically, to the death of Lieutenant Selfridge, two hours later, and a tremendous jolt to himself and the breaking of a thigh bone (left leg, one third way down toward the knee) which confined him in the hospital for several weeks, and from which he will entirely recover. But Wilbur learning of Orvilles disaster, and reproached as far behind him, rose to the situation, and in a few days, was ahead of anything Orville had done, to the great joy of his brother. The rest you know. Wilbur in France and Rome earned his conracts, and came home with Orville and their Sister Katharine, and they were hailed at the depot of his city, with the ringing of bells, the firing of cannon, and by over a thousand people, and the same at home, at the noon hour, and at night more than ten thousand people came out as old friends and neighbors to see them, the most splendid illumination of the street, and decoration of the buildings for three squares, being the order of the occasion. The city brought them on their arrival, home in a train of coaches, thier carriage being drawn with four white horses, in which rode with them their father and two favorite grandchildren, Leontine and Horace Wright.
The boys were natural workmen in wood or metal. Their father’s family, their mother’s family (and the mother herself) were inventive and ingenius. The father at eighteen years invented a type-writer, having never heard. It is useless to develop inheritance in their invention.
The city (Dayton) has decreed them two days (Jne 17 and 18), on which, besides innumerable ceremonies, they will be given three gold medals; One voted by the nation, one by the State, and another by the City.
Yours truly,
[Signature: Milton Wright]
A. Hildebrandt
Hauptmann a.D.
Berlin W. 30
Martin-Luther-Straße 10.