Tag Archives: Wilbur Wright

Wilbur & Orville and Kitty Hawk AND Bähs

It is mid-August 1900. Wilbur Wright after being admonished by his father to find purpose in his life decides to untangle the mystery of flight. It has long been on his mind since that day his father brought home a simple flying toy. After much urging Orville agrees to join him in the quest. And so after getting favorable reports from both the weather master at Kitty Hawk and postmaster, Wilbur immediately leaves from Dayton to see for himself. Orville plans to follow a few weeks later. Here is a letter from Orville to their sister, Katharine, after he arrives in Elizabeth City by train.

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Orville’s letter home and trying to find Wilbur

The Hotel Arlington

Elizabeth City NC Sep 26th 1900

Dear Swes;

It is only two hours since I wrote you from Norfolk, but having got a trace of Will here I send the news on at once. Trying to find Will at Kitty Hawk reminds me very much of a relief expedition to some lost Arctic explorer. The hotel clerk tells me Will was here four or five weeks ago he thinks – in fact is almost sure – it will be just five weeks tomorrow that he left. The hotel people are very accommodating and propose putting a man at hunting up the available way of reaching Kitty Hawk, They say the trip across is pretty much like “life” – uncertain, we know not at what moment we may arrive.

Do not let the store business worry you. Have Lorin attend to it, if he will. Harry Wellon is to be paid $4.50 Saturday night: ie: $4.50 per week. We will settle with Chrls when we get back. If he needs any money, however, let him have it.

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Orville’s drawing of a fish from side and top

The post office here closes at noon so I have not learned whether there is any word from Will. him

I was down on the wharf looking at the little fish in the water. They were different from anything I had seen. One was a long green thing but a pointed nose. Three or four inches long like this: (a drawing). Then like this (another drawing) it managed to move along by working those fins on top cross wise to the way it was going. The life like view given is from the above. That is the reason the tail was wrong first time. I hear the dinner bell ringing which means one o’clock, or twelve by your time.

Goodbye,

Orville

Tell Harry to sell those rolls of tire tape in box back of what he has been selling at 5 cents a roll. They were ten cents rolls, but we must get rid of them. They are tied in tin foil wrapping.


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Wilbur’s letter to Katharine upon leaving Kitty Hawk

Hotel Central

Poindexter Street 

Elizabeth City NC October 23 1900

Dear Sterchers

We have said “Good bye Kitty, Good bye Hawk, good bye Kitty Hawk, we’re going to leave you now.” We reached you here this afternoon, after a pleasant trip from Kitty Hawk of six hours. It took me forty five hours going down there and Orville sixteen hours. We will go on to Norfolk tomorrow and will probably stay over a day to see the ship yards at Newport News. If we do so we will reach home Saturday night at any rate so you must have grub for four Sunday. Poor Bubbo (Little Bubbo) has only tasted beaf steak one or two meals in the last fifty or so, and I suspect he will sink his teeth into a nice tender porterhouse with peculiar pleasure. We are now at the Central, the Arlington being no more. We had a fair supper. I have gained a few pounds since leaving home, and Orville is as heavy as when he left. we both look like niggers by reason of our sunburnt faces and hands. I took a look at myself in a glass today for the first time in five or six weeks and was somewhat surprised. We will have some “amosin” stories to tell when we get home.

Cheer up Sterchens, we will be home in about a day after you receive this. We have missed our little baby sister like anything, you may be sure. Remember we will be home Saturday night and will be hungry as “bähs” Sunday. A fellow warned me not to go ashore going down to K.H. saying he would be afraid of “bäh.” I do not know whether the hungry animals which flew out at me were the “bäh” he meant but they are my standard of hungryness.

Your loving burro,

Will


 

In doing research for a children’s book I’m writing using animal characters to tell the story of the Wright brothers on the Outer Banks I came across copies of letters to their steady supporter, Katharine. These two are among the first they sent to her after arriving in Kitty Hawk. And actually we still have those bähs around.

 

 

 

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Run for the Hill

Thanks Wilbur (he came up with the idea of once and for all solving the mystery of flight because his father got really, really tired of him doing nothing and told him, no demanded, that he do something  with his life) and Orville (he was reluctant at first then slowly came around) for staying the course. Thanks to them and their perseverance I have the most amazing playground.

It has everything a runner could want. First off it’s the only hill around, all ninety impressive feet of it. Then there are the paved walkways. The mowed fields. The artesian water fountain. The clean bathrooms. The tethered only dogs. The 20MPH speed limit. The friendly park service. And always, always the entertainment.

The Biofuel plane was making a historic flight from the Boston area to our little landing strip.

The paraglider I happened upon is a third party political leader from Quebec. He was making his inaugural flight. He had never done a glide. He wanted to do it first where the Wright brothers made history and as close to December 17 as he could get. So he made the trip to the OBX. It was a brisk wind day. It took him forever to launch. He had a GoPro on the glider but was happy to get a copy of my video (#37 on my YouTube channel).

Belk’s brings the suits in to town about once a month for meetings with the local store veeps. This day the pilots invited us to tour the plane.

The military is always present. I saw an E2C Hawkeye fly over low yesterday. They almost always circle the monument, sometimes they land at the airstrip adjacent to the monument (this is where I park because it’s easy to get to and never closes.) Today a Coast Guard chopper circled the monument twice. I’m sure it was because I was videoing them.

The wildlife is abundant. Deer graze on the hill, beside the runway. Mr Fox is a sly one but I’ve seen him. Today I saw a heron fly by with dinner in his beak, must have been a mouse or a frog because the run off ditches are too shallow for fish. There are flocks of migrating Canadian Geese. Cedar Wax Wings by the dozens. Lizards dashing across my path.

Johnny Moore quote

Quote by Johnny Moore age 16 youngest witness to the first flight.

And the magic, generated by that 12 second flight of Orville’s that changed the world and the 59 second follow up by Wilbur (with two short spurts between) the same day that put the lid on any nay sayers, is ever pervasive. The landscape has changed since Johnny Moore went running down the beach shouting for all to hear. (The dunes came in the 30’s as a result of a WPA project, but in 1903 the beach was within eyesight.) But not the karma. It’s as strong as ever.

I love to run along the path that takes me from stone marker to stone marker of those four flights. I say to myself, “They’re flying.” I count seconds. “They’re still flying.” Twelve seconds is a long time when you’re doing something for the first time. And fifty-nine seconds! It must have seemed like an eternity. Imagine their glee.

“In commemoration of the conquest of the air by the brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright conceived by genius achieved by dauntless resolution and unconquerable faith.”

I love our playground!

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