SPRING 2003

The Centennial of Powered Flight (1903-2003) The Wright Family Album & ’s Little-Known Connection

This article is 2nd in a series of historical start, they had seven children together. District, the Southern District of focus stories to commemorate the Reuchlin was their first, born in 1860. Oregon had established Philomath Centennial of Powered Flight, offered in Katharine was the youngest girl born to FLIGHTlines during 2003. Keep reading, College near Corvallis. Bishop Wright as we offer little-known information about Bishop Wright and his wife (1874) and remained affiliated with that the Wright family’s connection to our own the only daughter to survive infancy. institution, albiet largely from a beautiful state of Oregon. distance. Philomath College became Bishop Wright’s three years in the very prominent in the life of the newly ore than 100 years ago, a Oregon territory were hard ones indeed. formed State of Oregon. In fact, it MBishop of the United Brethren After a year as a circuit riding missionary remained open until 1929, when it was Church commented with disgust on in Oregon’s mining camps, he was forced to close due to the growth of the idea that human beings would ever assigned new responsibilities. The Oregon’s public college network. fly. “Blasphemy! Utter blasphemy!” Pacific Congress for United Brethren he shouted. “God intends only his Church divided the Oregon Territory into It is interesting to consider that had angels to fly.” What was the Bishop’s two large districts. The Northern District Sublimity College not failed, causing name? Reverend Milton Wright - none Reverend Wright to return to Illinois other than the father of Wilbur and more quickly than he had originally Orville Wright themselves. planned, and marry - or had he been appointed with primary responsibility The son of a pioneer, Milton Wright at Philomath College rather than was a United Brethren minister and Sublimity - the may theology professor, who ultimately never have been born. became a Bishop in that denomination. His wife, Susan Instead, Wilbur Wright was born in Wright, was the daughter of a carriage 1867. He was an excellent student and maker. The year was 1853 when she athlete. He had ambitions of going to and Milton met at Hartville College in Yale, but never managed to attend , where he was working and college because of a life-changing she was a student of literature. injury he suffered in the winter of 1885-86. During a skating game called After a long courtship, Milton asked in 1857 established a preparatory school “shinney” a bat flew out of another Susan to marry him and accompany at Sublimity and appointed Reverend player’s hands and struck Wilbur in the him to the Oregon Territory, where the Wright as its first president. Despite his mouth. The blow knocked out his teeth United Brethren church had assigned efforts, Sublimity College closed its and turned his face to a bloody pulp. him as Bishop of the territory and a doors two years later due to lack of As his mouth, teeth and jaw healed, missionary among the mining camps. student enrollment in a largely Catholic complications set in. Medicine While Susan declined to accompany and Methodist region. Wright wearily prescribed by the family physician him to the Oregon wilderness, she returned to Illinois and married Susan, weakened his heart and an undisclosed agreed to marry him upon his return. discouraged at “his failure out West.” but severe intestinal disorder followed. They married in 1859 - fairly late in Wilbur abandoned all plans for college life for “those days.” He was almost Concurrent with the establishment of 31; she was 28. In spite of their late Sublimity College in the Northern (story continued on page 7) Page 7 and fell into a deep depression, living that the Wright brothers organized a honor that he and his brother for years in seclusion. company to manufacture airplanes in Wilbur had earned in developing 1909 and began filing law suits against the first true airplanes. It was a toy purchased by Bishop all other airplane manufacturers that Wright for his sons that sparked this were using their patented methods of Bishop Wright lived with Wilbur fascination with flight. In 1878, Rev. aerodynamic control. Wilbur became from his retirement in 1905 through Wright bought them a flying toy made the designated “expert witness” in his death in 1917. His own hand- of paper, bamboo and cork and these cases and traveled frequently to written diaries cover a sixty-year powered by tightly wound rubber give testimony. Worn out, he span from 1857 to 1917. In those bands. (Today we diaries, he recounts the would call the story of the day he contraption a finally flew in a plane. helicopter.) The The year was 1910, brothers built a and Orville piloted the number of successful craft in which his flying replicas of the family’s aging toy. When they patriarch consented to undertook to build the serve as passenger. toy on a much larger Orville feared the scale, it failed to work experience might so well. They were 11 unnerve the elderly and 7 at the time. This Reverend Wright. But is when the Bishop instead, the bishop uttered his now shouted above the famous words about combined roar of God only wanting engine, propellers and angels to fly. slipstream: “Higher, Orville, higher!” They performed their first aeronautical experiments with contracted typhoid on one of his many Despite his earlier discouraging kites in 1899, then built a series of journeys and died in Dayton on May commentaries on the prospects of gliders through 1902 - developing an 30, 1912 - exactly 13 years after he aviation, Bishop Wright and his aerodynamic control system for began his formal aviation experiments. wife Susan instilled in their airplanes while teaching themselves to children a sense of curiosity. They fly. They added an engine to their Orville reluctantly took over their encouraged them to pursue their aircraft in 1903 and made the first company when Wilbur died, but sold it own interests. At the dinner table, controlled, sustained powered flights in 1915 to follow his own interests. He the Bishop minister would have the on December 17th of that year. was a consulting engineer on the first children debate the topic of the day guided missile (the “buzz bomb”) - which he always chose. As adults, The Bishop’s boys made their first during World War I and was co- they used this model of debate to public demonstrations of their flying inventor of “split flaps” used on dive hash out their disagreements about machine to a group of Dayton, Ohio, bombers in World War II. aerodynamic problems - which residents on October 4, 1905. In 1908, sometimes became quite heated. they sold airplanes to the U.S. Army Orville was a lifelong board member of and to a French syndicate and the National Advisory Council on From their father, Orv and Will demonstrated them to the public at Aeronautics (NACA), which later learned perseverance, dedication, large. In 1909, Wilbur flew before a became NASA - the National hard work, and the “stick-to- million spectators at the Hudson- Aeronautics And Space Administration. itiveness” that would typify their Fulton Celebration in New York City. Most of the latter years of his life were approach to problem solving. The flying machine became such a hit spent preserving and protecting the