How Wilbur Wright Almost Died Going to Kitty Hawk

In 1900 Wilbur Wright wanted to go somewhere to test his new glider. He had been working on it above the bike shop and now he had found a perfect place where wind was constant and sand abundant for soft landings. The problem was it the Outer Banks of Kitty Hawk North Carolina, a desolate fishing village of castaways and nerdowells that was  almost impossible to get to. After taking a train to Elizabeth City Wilbur had to get a across Alebmarle Sound. Kitty Hawk was on a spit of land that kept the Atlantic Ocean at bay and was the home of many shipwrecks.

The man in the derby from Dayton Ohio found one Israel Perry to take him across the sound. They set out in a small skiff to get to his boat moored offshore. This was his first inclination there might be a problem. The boat immediately took on water. Wilbur and Perrys son began to bail like mad and when he asked the condition of the sailing schooner Perry told him the skiff was in better shape than the sailboat. They reached the boat and Wilbur found out this was true. They headed across intro the teeth of a lingering hurricane.

Wilbur now was bailing for his life.  When the main sail blew down he had to to out on the top of the boat to retrieve it. The weather turned so bad that Perry headed for a sand bar with only the jib acting as a kite. The boat was in danger of being swamped and Wilbur bailed with Perrys son to keep from gong to the bottom. When they finally reached the other side of the bay in the morning, Wilbur fell asleep on the dock waking to the sleepy isolated community of Kitty Hawk. He had survived. In three years he would look down upon the Albermarle Sound...from the sky.

Wright Brothers Wrong Story

How the Wright Brothers 1903 Flyer was Nearly Destroyed in a Flood

In 1914 a monstrous flood hit Dayton Ohio. The streets became rivers with people being rescued with canoes or anything that would float. A levee just outside of town collapsed sending a torrent of water toward the town and the old Wright Cycle Shop. Behind the the shop was a shed and in that shed were the glass plates of the famous 1903 flight in Kitty Hawk North Carolina. Also in the shed were wooden crates. In those wooden crates was the 1903 Flyer itself.

The Wright Brothers had crated it up after the flight and thought nothing of putting the most famous airplane in the world in a storage shed behind their bicycle business. The shed could have been opened by anyone in the eleven years since Orville took to the air for twelve seconds on December 17 1903. Someone could have easily stolen the airplane. It was not even locked. But now it was in danger of being destroyed by the water rushing through the streets of Dayton.

Wilbur Wright had died in 1912. Orville was frantically trying to rescue his father who had been stranded in the family home. After putting his father in a canoe and getting him to safety he had to wait for the flood waters to recede. Hundreds died and the city of Dayton was devastated .Orville reached the shed the next day and opened the door. The glass plates had been submerged but the most famous photo of all taken on December 17 1903 of the First Twelve Seconds of flight had survived. The crates were water logged and he realized they had been under water from the layer of mud over the top.

When he finally opened the first crate he found the 1903 Flyer wet but undamaged. The mud had acted as an insulator and kept the water from pouring in. The most famous airplane in the world had survived and would eventually be given to the Smithsonian for safekeeping.

Wright Brothers Wrong Story

The Great Adventures of Winston and Teddy

It was a heroic age. Men believed exploration of the South Pole was heroic. They believed freezing to death was heroic. They believed fighting in wars was heroic. The awful carnage of the twentieth century had yet to prove the utter futilty of war. Winston Churchill and Teddy Roosevelt grew up in the heroic age and both men set out to prove themselves at a very young age.

Teddy lost his mother and wife the same day and went West for three years. He deliberately put himself in harms way and was nearly killed by a Grizzly Bear, shot by an armed man in a saloon, scalped by four Indians, and trampled by stampeding cattle. He was out to find the myth of the West and to that end he threw himself into one dangerous situation after another demanding that life give him back adventure and prove himself to himself.

Winston Churchill was not much different. He went off to the Boer War hoping to find adventure and to prove himself as a solider. What happened was he ended up a journalist but this didn't stop him from rescuing a train under attack and then getting captured by the Boers. Churchill believed he would survive when all around him were dying. He believed he was destined for greater things and that would see him through.

Both men demanded adventure from life and carried a sense of their own destiny. When one reads about Teddy out West or Winston in the Boer War in Africa you come away with a belief in destiny. How else can we explain survival against all odds.

Forging A President How the Wild West Created Teddy Roosevelt