8
WILBUR’S DEATH
In the hilly, tree-shaded suburb of Oakwood just south of Dayton, a Colonial-style mansion overlooks its neighbors in quiet splendor. No brown signs or public parking lots mark it as an element of the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park. Its neighbors want it that way. But an act of Congress in 2009 added Hawthorn Hill to the national park’s collection of Dayton-area sites that tell the story of the Wright brothers.
Hawthorn Hill is intimately related to their story, but it stands apart from the other sites. Hawthorn Hill isn’t about airplanes but about family. Wilbur, Orville and Katharine were to live there with their father just as they had at 7 Hawthorn. While the elder brother had a hand in the planning of Hawthorn Hill, he didn’t live to see it built. The bishop lived there until his death in 1917. Katharine lived there until 1926, when she married Henry J. Haskell, an old college friend, and moved to Kansas City. Feeling abandoned, Orville refused to see her until she was on her death bed with pneumonia in 1929. He lived on at Hawthorn Hill until his death in 1948.
Hawthorn Hill was the most visible sign of the wealth the Wright brothers gained from their airplane and the change it made in their lives. The Wright family home at 7 Hawthorn was comfortable, but the small, narrow house was hardly suited to entertaining world leaders. Soon after forming their company and acquiring wealth, the Wrights decided to make a home that reflected their new station in life. They bought a parcel on the north side of town at Salem and Harvard, but Katharine wanted a place with more privacy. In February 1912, they bought a seventeen-acre lot in Oakwood dominated by a hill shaded with hawthorn trees. On the top of the hill they built a mansion.
Hawthorn Hill, the Wright family mansion, catches early morning light in September 2013. Author’s photo.
Although he consulted with his family, Orville made Hawthorn Hill his personal project. Construction began in 1912; when it was finished in 1914, Orville and Katharine spent four days in Grand Rapids, Michigan, picking out furnishings at Berkey & Gay Furniture Company. Orville equipped the house with many laborsaving devices, some of his own invention. He designed the utility systems himself, including one that collected and filtered rainwater for bathing. In The Bishop’s Boys, Tom Crouch called Hawthorn Hill “Orville’s machine for living.” The family moved in on April 28, 1914.
No doubt the high ground gave them a sense of security. A year earlier, the Great Dayton Flood had ravaged the city, killing hundreds and doing major damage to homes, shops and factories. Surging into West Dayton on March 25, the water swept into the Wrights’ neighborhood, eventually inundating 7 Hawthorn to a depth of six feet. As the waters gushed in, the Wright children helped their father evacuate in a neighbor’s canoe. “The flood was second to Noah’s,” the bishop wrote in his diary.
The flood ruined their old space in the Speedwell plant and eventually put the carmaker out of business. Two miles west of the river on higher ground, the Wright Company factory was safe. But the flood swamped the bicycle shop. “It has now been two and one-half weeks since I have been able to be in my office and we have not yet succeeded in getting any light or heat,” Orville wrote to Andrew Freedman on April 11. Besides the shop, the boxed-up flyer, photographic negatives and other priceless historic records were immersed; many records were lost or damaged. Today, some of the famous photos of the Wright brothers’ flights show the marks of water-damaged emulsion. Back in New York, Wright Company directors agreed to donate $5,000 to Dayton’s recovery efforts.
From left: John R. McMahon, Pliny Williamson; Orville, Milton and Katharine Wright; Earl N. Findley; and nephew Horace Wright at Hawthorn Hill. Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.
The Wright brothers had vowed to rest the burdens of corporate life on managers while they resumed the joyous process of invention and discovery. But they continued to manage every aspect of the company. Orville focused on company operations while Wilbur continued to wage the patent fights and oversee the foreign companies. They did little research together, if any.
Orville thought the unending patent dispute wore down his brother. “The delays were what worried him to his death…first into a state of chronic nervousness, and then into a physical fatigue,” Orville said years later. Returning from a trip to Boston on May 2, Wilbur fell ill. While he seemed to get better at first, he developed a high fever on May 4. He seemed stable enough for Orville to leave for Washington to deliver an airplane, but Wilbur became unconscious two days later.1
A memorial service at the Wright family grave site in Woodland Cemetery on June 1, 2012, marked the 100th anniversary of Wilbur’s death. Neil Armstrong spoke at the service. Author’s photo.
Orville rushed home. Two local doctors and a specialist from Cincinnati treated Wilbur. Nurses cared for him around the clock. Local newspapers made daily reports about his condition. Wilbur died on May 30. He had just turned forty-five in April. “A short life, full of consequences,” Milton Wright wrote in his diary. “An unfailing intellect, imperturbable temper, great self-reliance and as great modesty, seeing the right clearly, pursuing it steadily, he lived and died.”2
Dayton, America and Europe grieved. More than one thousand condolences flooded the Wright home. Newspapers around the world published tributes. On June 1, the day of his funeral, Wilbur’s body lay in state from late morning until early afternoon in the First Presbyterian Church downtown. Thousands lined up to pay their respects. The funeral service took place at 3:00 p.m. At 3:30 p.m., all the city’s church bells rang and streetcars, trains and interurbans paused for five minutes. Wilbur was laid to rest in Woodland Cemetery. A century later, a memorial service at Wilbur’s graveside would include remarks by another pioneer aviator and fellow Ohioan: Neil Armstrong, engineering test pilot and the first man to walk on the moon.3