USA > Ohio > Montgomery County > Dayton > History of the city of Dayton and Montgomery County, Ohio, Volume I > Part 21
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COURT OF HONOR, WRIGHT CELEBRATION
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attired occupying places on a huge inclined platform, from which their voices rang out in a number of patriotic songs.
At 2:30 in the afternoon occurred the grand parade, made up of representatives of the Grand Army, United States regulars, the Ohio National Guard, the school boys brigade and an allegorical division representing by floats the progress of trans- portation. The large number of bands, the lavishly decorated streets and the splendid representations and decorations constituting the court of honor gave to the display a peculiar and striking character putting it altogether in a class to itself.
The evening was given up to an illuminated automobile parade. Both evenings the illumination of Cooper Park excited the admiration of thousands of people.
WILBUR AND ORVILLE WRIGHT.
The story of these two sons of Dayton deserves to be given a permanent place. The main points in the following account appeared in an article published by the author of this volume at the time when the interest in the achievements of the suc- cessful inventors was at its highest point.
LONG AND NOBLE ANCESTRY.
The ancestors of the Wright brothers can be traced through a number of gen- erations in Essex, England. Samuel Wright, through whom the family was trans- planted to America, came to Springfield, Massachusetts, at its first settlement in 1636, having previously lived a short time at Dorchester, Massachusetts. He was a deacon and lay preacher, and was known as Deacon Wright. His lineal descen- dants down to the Wright brothers, were James, Samuel, Benoni, Dan, who moved to Centerville, Montgomery county, Ohio, in 1814, Dan, second of that name, and Milton, known as Bishop Wright, who is the father of Wilbur and Orville. An- cestors of other names were Rev. John Russell of Hadley, Rev. Joshua Moody of Portsmouth, Judge John Otis of Barnstable, Edmond Freeman of Sandwich, and John Porter of Windsor, Connecticut. The connections here represented were of a highly honorable character.
To citizens of Dayton it is of special interest to know that the second Dan Wright was married to Catherine Reeder, at Centerville, in 1818, and that her mother, Margaret, was a sister of Benjamin Van Cleve, who was very prominent in the founding of Dayton. Her father was killed by the Indians in Cincinnati, and her mother afterward married Samuel Thompson, and was the first white woman to set foot on the site of Dayton. John Van Cleve, the founder of the family in America, came from Holland to Long Island about 1650, later settling in New Jersey. Probably for no family in Dayton are there ampler materials for an ex- tended and complete genealogical tree than for the Wright family.
In 1821 Dan and Catherine Wright moved to Rush county, Indiana, where Milton Wright was born November 17, 1828. Milton Wright had the advantage of the country schools of the time, and for a short time was a student in Harts- ville college. He continued to follow his studies in private with unusual decision and success. In 1853 he received license to preach from the White River confer- ence of the United Brethren church. In this early period, a part of the time he
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was engaged in preaching, and a part of the time in teaching. He was principal of a denominational school in Oregon in 1857-59.
November 24, 1859, he was married to Miss Susan Catherine Koerner, of Union county, Indiana, whose father, John G. Koerner, was a wagon and carriage maker. She was born in Hillsboro, Loudoun county, Virginia, April 30, 1831. She pursued studies in Hartsville college to within six months of graduation. She was specially successful in mathematical studies. She was a woman of great pa- tience, perseverance, and penetration. She was diffident, but ready when drawn into conversation. She was devoted to her husband and children, and was domes- tic in her tastes and habits. She died July 4, 1889.
Between 1859 and 1869 Mr. Wright was engaged a short time in teaching and afterward in preaching. In 1869 he was made editor of the Religious Telescope, published at Dayton, Ohio. His eldest sons were Reuchlin and Lorin. The third son, Wilbur, was born April 16, 1867, in Henry county, Indiana, eight miles east of Newcastle. Orville, the sixth child, two children, twins, having previously died in infancy. was born in Dayton, August 19, 1871. A daughter, Katharine, was born three years later to a day. Katharine Wright graduated at Oberlin college in 1898 and is now a teacher in the Steele high school, Dayton. She is secretary of the Dayton Association of College Women, and is also secretary of the college class in which she graduated.
Mr. Wright continued as editor of the Telescope eight years. In 1887 he was elected bishop, and in 1878 moved from Dayton to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In 1881 he moved to Richmond, Indiana, where in connection with his work as presiding elder, he edited the Richmond Star. In 1884 he again made Dayton his home, where he yet resides. In these various places the children, as they grew up took their regular places in the public schools.
FUTURE AERONAUTS IN HIGH SCHOOL.
In 1884-85 Wilbur took, in the Dayton high school, what was practically the final year's work, though he did not graduate as his course had been taken in dif- ferent schools, having different standards. His standing was high, scientific ques- tions especially interested him. After he left high school, he would have taken a college course if his health had permitted. He was hampered by heart trouble, caused probably, from being accidentally struck by a polo stick. His mother hav- ing become an invalid and his father being most of the time on the Pacific Coast, serving a second term as bishop, lie was occupied for about four years, from 1885 to 1889, in caring for his mother and home affairs. In this period he read every- thing, following his own liking, and remembered well what he read, scientific ques- tions and mechanical problems specially appealing to him.
From 1886 to 1889 Orville was a student at the Dayton high school, doing credi- table work. When just a lad he became interested in printing, and secured a small supply of type. Another boy, by the name of Sines, had a small press, and the two boys entered into a partnership and put out the sign, "Sines and Wright, Job Printers." The partnership coming to an end, Wilbur assisted Orville in making a press entirely of wood, which was not like anything ever seen before, but which performed the work well. Orville's interest in the printing business led him to drop
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PARADE OF THE FIRE DEPARTMENT, WRIGHT CELEBRATION
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out of high school about a year before he would have graduated. In connection with his printing he began the printing of a small newspaper, called "The West Side News."
IN THE BICYCLE BUSINESS.
While Wilbur was associated in the business of printing, he did not become closely connected with the practical part. The brothers opened up a room and began to sell bicycles, adding later the work of repairing, and later still began to manufacture simply for their own trade. The bicycle business increasing, the busi- ness of printing was discontinued in 1896. The highest grade bicycle was called the Van Cleve, after an honored ancestral name. While engaged in this business, both in the office and in the shop, an earlier interest in the flying machine was revived and increased. They continued, however, in the bicycle business till 1906.
The Wright brothers were not simply practical mechanics, as some have said and written, but in their work, and along with it, they had laid the foundation of both a practical and liberal education. They mastered underlying principles as well as practical applications. For the purpose of the work and business in which they became engaged, they secured a working acquaintance with different modern languages.
The first interest of the Wright brothers in flying machines dates from the autumn of 1878, when their father brought home a toy called a helicopter, which was so constructed as to rise in the air, its two screws being driven by twisted rubber bands. When Lilienthal, the bold and ingenious German experimenter, lost his life in gliding, or coasting on the air, in 1896, their attention was more decidedly turned to the problem of mechanical flight. In the spirit of sport, as they imagined, they began their experiments, but soon more practical motives began to impel them. The brothers worked together in their studies and experiments, no special dif- ference appearing in the form or result of their work.
PRINCIPLES PLUS PRACTICE.
They did not disdain what others had done and written in the field of aero- nautics, nor the suggestions of associates, knowing well that the real problems still unsolved would tax the utmost application. They came to the conclusion that con- tinued and repeated practice was the most necessary thing in attaining successful flight. The factors involved were too numerous, various, and complex to be an- ticipated by calculation, though there was a necessary place for this along with ex- periment. Right here is where their success came in. To varied experimenta- tion they added a grasp of underlying principles and a large use of skilled cal- culation, the inventor's genius in suiting ideal means to chosen ends always being understood. Having decided on the plan of a machine to be flown as a kite or to be used in gliding, they conducted experiments in 1900 and 1901 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and Kill Devil hill, near there, the place being selected because of the prevailing strong and steady winds. The main object was to devise and test means for guiding and balancing. The use of the forward rudder and the warped planes for these purposes was adopted and proved in a high degree successful.
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RECOGNIZING OBSTACLES.
After the experiments of these two years, Wilbur Wright, in an extended ad- dress delivered at Chicago before the Society of Western Engineers, indicated the point of difficulty toward which the brothers were so persistently directing their at- tention. He said: "The difficulties which obstruct the pathway to success in flying machine construction are of three general classes: 1. Those which relate to the construction of the sustaining wings. 2. Those which relate to generation and application of the power required to drive the machine through the air. 3. Those relating to the balancing and steering of the machine after it is actually in flight. Of these difficulties two are already to a certain extent solved. * * * * As long ago as 1893 a machine weighing eight thousand pounds demonstrated its power both to lift itself from the ground and to maintain a speed of from thirty to forty miles per hour, but it came to grief in an accidental free flight owing to the inability of the operators to balance and steer it properly. This inability to balance and steer still confronts students of the flying problem, although nearly ten years have passed. When this one feature has been worked out, the age of flying machines will have arrived, for all other difficulties are of minor importance."
The machine referred to was the Maxim machine, which was confined near the ground by an upper rail. A gust of wind struck the machine, causing it to break the upper rail, thus permitting a short flight ending in the overturning and wreck- ing of the machine.
AGAIN AT KITTY HAWK.
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In 1902 and 1903 further experiments were conducted at Kitty Hawk, lead- ing to improvements in the lines already adopted. It was found necessary to con- struct new tables as to air pressure on planes at different angles, and on differently formed surfaces, to take the place of the faulty and incomplete ones previously existing. The steering and balancing problems having been largely solved, a motor and propellers were now to be brought into use. Purely by scientific calculations the screws were designed and were found exactly to meet the requirements. The motor made by themselves, yielded better results than expected. The shaft, how- ever, broke, three weeks being required to secure another from Dayton. This also broke. Orville then returned to Dayton, and provided a shaft that met all require- ments. Difficulties and accidents were met in the first attempt at flight, but De- cember 17, 1903. the machine carrying a man rose by its own power in free flight, the first instance of the kind in the history of the world. Other successful flights were made. A little later the machine, while at rest, was wrecked by being over- turned by a sudden wind.
EXPERIMENTS NEAR DAYTON.
In 1904 and 1905 experiments were conducted near Simms Station, eight miles east of Dayton, the devices for steering and balancing being greatly improved as a result of these tests. In 1905 Orville flew twenty-one miles. The next day Wil- bur flew twenty-four miles. Up to this time there was no restraint upon the at- tendance at the experiments, photographs of the machine alone being forbidden
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Citizens of Dayton were invited to witness the flights, but during all the years of experiment they seemed to show as much incredulity and lack of interest as did persons at a distance.
BUSINESS NEGOTIATIONS.
After the successful flights of 1905 the Wright brothers were occupied in per- fecting details and in business negotiations. The French government sent a com- mission to Dayton to make investigations and to negotiate. The reports were favorable, but the cabinet turned down the proposed agreements, evidently because some persons preferred that the needs of the French government should be sup- plied by Frenchmen. A contract was entered into with the United States govern- ment to furnish a machine to the government that should comply with certain re- quirements. Experiments were renewed at Kitty Hawk in 1908, with a view to testing the machine as to its ability to meet the government requirements. After the experiments, which were entirely successful, were nearly completed, an injury to the machine caused by a wrong use of a lever, brought the trials to a close.
HONORS OF TWO CONTINENTS.
As a contract had been entered into with a French syndicate, which required tha tests should be made in France at the same time that tests were to be con- ducted for the United States government, Wilbur departed to France with one ma- chine, while Orville arranged to begin tests at Fort Myer, near Washington, as per contract with the United States government. The brothers should have been together, as the new exigencies arising, to say nothing of the demands and in- terference of the public, were taxing in the extreme. The tests in France and in the United States were entirely satisfactory to all of the parties concerned. The sad accident at Fort Myer, resulting in the serious injury to Orville and in the death of Lieutenant Selfridge, in no way destroyed confidence in the merits of the machine.
The wings or planes of the machines used in the trials are forty feet long and six and a half wide, having a surface of five hundred square feet. The planes are six feet apart. The forward rudder consists of two planes two and a half feet wide and sixteen feet long, and a small vertical plane connecting the two. The guiding and balancing are effected by two or three levers which control the forward rud- der and change the angles of the planes, at the same time shifting the vertical rear rudder. The patents cover all of these features of guidance and balance, and have been granted in nine European countries as well as in the United States. The mo- tive power is supplied by a twenty-five horse power gasoline motor, driving two propellers. The machine in flight averages thirty-eight or forty miles per hour. The machine weighs about eight hundred pounds.
A BALANCED PERSONALITY.
It is significant that the interest of the public turns even more to the inventors of the successful flying machine than to the machine itself. Wilbur and Orville Wright affect no singularity or superiority. They made no boasting announce-
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ments, took their time to perfect and prove their invention and adjust themselves to its demands. In no case do the personal or moral elements, alertness, courage, and self-control, have more to do than in the management of the flying machine. The Wright brothers are both unmarried and reside with their father and sister. While not much inclined to general society, they cherish no aversion for the same, but simply take a larger pleasure in the companionship of more intimate friends. Those who would find something singular in these now famous brothers will fail to find it in the men themselves, least of all in their estimate of themselves, and so will have to coin the same out of their own imagination.
As the approaching Wright celebration was beginning to stir the minds of the people to a high pitch of interest, eight men of West Dayton, first from casual re- mark and then from serious thought, were led, on the evening of May 13th, to the International Aeroplane Club, with O. J. Needham as president, which soon from the number and nationality of its membership seemed to justify its name. The purchase by the club of a Wright flying machine is a matter of special local in- terest. It may be said that, in more senses than one, invention in Dayton is in the air. The flying machine known as the Jones orthopter was invented here. Men and boys are constructing dirigible balloons and wireless telegraph systems.
DR. CUSTER'S INVENTIONS.
Dr. L. E. Custer, for a number of years a practicing dentist in Dayton, has won world-wide fame by a variety of inventions. Dr. Custer invented the first elec- tric gold annealer used in dentistry in 1890. This was for annealing the gold foil used in the filling of teeth. Prior to this time the gold was annealed by passing through the flame of a spirit lamp. This required much time, the gold was never evenly annealed and unless great care was used the gold would be "gased" by the flame. All these objections were overcome at a single stroke by the invention of the Electric Gold Annealer. This instrument consists of a mat of platinum wires invested in a fire clay tray. The heat produced in this manner when heated by an electric current was even, pure, and of a high degree. Prof. C. N. Johnson says of this device, "by far the most perfect method of annealing gold is the electric gold annealer of Dr. L. E. Custer, of Dayton, Ohio."
In 1893, he invented the arc light method of melting platinum. Prior to this time the dentist's platinum scrap was almost worthless but this device made it possible for the dentist to melt and work over his own platinum which is so ex- pensive and is so largely used in dentistry. Platinum melts at about three thousand six hundred degrees Fahrenheit. This could only be melted hereto- fore with the oxy-hydrogen blow pipe, a complicated and expensive process used only by the platinum refiner. Dr. Custer's invention was simple and efficient. The platinum scrap was placed on a block of carbon and using an arc light carbon as the other electrode, an arc which gave a heat of six thousand degrees was struck upon the platinum scrap which was instantly melted into a single nugget. This was then easily rolled out into a sheet or drawn into a wire. Dr. Custer found that platinum melted in the presence of carbon appeared to take up carbon and became hard like steel. This increased the value of the platinum for
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certain uses, but he also found that when platinum was melted upon a block of lime by a platinum pointed electrode it retained its original ductile property. Thus the dentist and all users of platinum had it their command a simple and easy method of not only utilizing their almost worthless platinum scrap but of converting it into either hard or soft platinum. This is now universally used by the dentist who has the electric current in his office.
His third invention and the one which brought him most fame and honor was the invention of the electric oven for the fusing of dental porcelain. Prior to this discovery, when the dentist made a set of teeth on porcelain it was necessary to use a large anthracite or coke oven, as large as a book case. The fire was built early in the morning and after some six or eight hours when there was a white bed of coals and the muffle was at an incandescent heat the porcelain was slowly intro- duced until it was melted and then removed. All this was fraught with dangers of "gasing" the porcelain, the muffle breaking, and the great difficulty of telling just when the right degree of heat had been attained. The difficulty and dangers were so great that there were less than a dozen dentists in all the world who did this class of dental work and they had to make a specialty of this. But when Dr. Custer brought out the electric oven in 1894, how different ! The oven, not larger than one's double hand could be placed in the operating room instead of the cellar and while it produced a heat of about three thousand degrees within, it could be held in the hand. Not only that, the most important feature was the purity of the heat and the perfect method of measuring and controlling it. The fusing of porce- lain was no longer a matter of guess work. The oven could be started and the cur- rent turned off at any predetermined heat. This invention immediately revolution- ized prosthetic dentistry and made possible the introduction of the beautiful porce- lain fillings which are so largely taking the place of the conspicuous gold fillings in the practice of every progressive dentist. As one return for this invention Dr. Custer was presented with the only gold medal ever given by the Ohio State Dental Society.
In 1906 he invented a wireless device for controlling the movements of tor- pedo boats and dirigible balloons. This is exceedingly simple and gives just as perfect control of the movements of such a craft as the conveyance of a message by wireless. It is based upon the same laws.
His last invention of merit is the method of casting a gold filling out of the mouth. Dr. Taggart, of Chicago, the inventor of the first cast gold fillings, melts the gold with the oxy-hydrogen blow pipe but Dr. Custer devised an ap- pliance in which the gold is melted by the arc light just as he melted platinum. This gives twice the heat of the oxy-hydrogen blow pipe. In his latest device the gold is then cast into the mould by centrifugal force instead of compressed air as formerly used.
Dr. Custer was born in 1862 at Perryville, Ohio. In 1884, he graduated from Otterbein University, and nearly all of the time since then has been a practicing dentist in Dayton. In August, 1909, he represented the United States in the Fifth International Dental Congress convening in Berlin. At present, Dr. Custer is honorary president of the National Dental Association. He takes much interest in aeronautics and is a charter member of the International Aeroplane Club.
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NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS.
Dayton claims to be the headquarters for thirteen national and sixteen state or- ganizations of a religious, fraternal, trades or commercial character. The business and religious agencies of two large Christian denominations are centered here. The National Manufacturers' Association has its offices here, John Kirby, general manager of the Dayton Manufacturing Company, being the president of the asso- ciation. The International Labor Union has likewise its offices here.
These national and world connections are real and are to be taken into due account. Opportunities and responsibilities are alike involved. The day for a merely local consciousness for Dayton is past.
PERSONAL SKETCHES.
It would be unfortunate if, in the wider view of the people, there should be lost the persistent home consciousness that must ever dominate the great majority of their activities. Likewise would it be unfortunate if splendid and exceptional triumphs should blind the minds of men to the ordinary duties and virtues that must ever make up the major part of human life. Said a discerning man writing to another, "Do they grow men down your way?" The producing of manhood and womanhood, is, first and last, the great problem. Beauty, strength, efficiency, in- tegrity, helpfulness, these are at once our city's highest attainment, glory and resource.
ROBERT W. STEELE.
Robert W. Steele, a junior associate and admirer of John W. Van Cleve, was in many respects like him and was his natural successor in various lines of work. He was born in Dayton July 3, 1819. His father, Judge James Steele, has already been noticed. He was prepared for college in the Dayton Academy and in 1836 entered Miami University in which institution he completed a regular course. He studied law, but on the advice of physicians gave up a professional course. Though never physically strong he continued a life-long student, without, however withdrawing himself from ordinary activities. His efforts were given rather for the welfare of others than for his own interests. In 1857, he was made a trustee of his alma mater. When in 1842 the board of managers of public schools was established Mr. Steele became a member and between that time and 1855 served eleven years, being six of these years president of the board. When in 1855 the first city board of education was constituted he was made a member and was elected president of the board. For six years he continued to hold this position, and for fourteen years more he continued to serve as a member of the board, devoting his time and rare judgment unstintingly to the building up of the schools in their critical formative period. In 1876, Mr. Steele was appointed a member of the city board of exam- iners and in 1888 a member of the library board then made an independent body.
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