Wright guys – Part II

Orville (L) and Wilbur

Reuchlin Wright was born in a log cabin in 1861 near Fairmount, in Grant County. Had time and events been more favorable across history, Reuchlin would have been the most famous Fairmounter of all. In 1931, James Dean, the Rebel Without a Cause, was born in Fairmount.

You get free facts on our trips down this runway. Reuchlin Wright was born in Fairmount because the Wright children were born all over the place. Lorin, next in line, was born a year later in Orange, in western Fayette County, not far from where father Milton was born.

Wilbur came to pass in 1867 in the tiny Henry County town of Millville, west of Hagerstown, where a museum still functions. Orville found life in 1871 in Dayton, Ohio. A younger sister Katherine was born in Dayton in 1874. Two other children died in infancy.

Milton qualified for frequent flyer miles as a roving minister for the United Brethren's more radical and conservative sect. He lived in places you never heard of, including a little village not far from Hope. Hence, when Susan was with child, the child happened wherever Milton happened to be seated at the time.

He was also embroiled in its most striking controversy in the 1880s, a fight that lasted until 1905, or two years after his sons became famous. That controversy began when the Wrights were living in Iowa. An internal church squabble pushed Milton out of authority and he found himself back in Indiana, preaching the Richmond circuit.

As has been common over the course of history, churches tend to break into factions when the old guard won’t move over for the new guard. Or the Wright guard. Lawsuits, libel trials, arguments, court cases, attorney filings all conspired to keep the Indiana news media fully engaged for several years.

This snippet from August 1903 from a Pike County paper:

“Dublin, Ind. – The sensational church fight of the United Brethren radical branch, which has been running for nearly two years, was resumed when the radicals began their annual conference …. At the opening Bishop Milton Wright attempted to preside but the brethren would not permit it. They say he declared that he would preside if he had to resort to force, upon which the meeting was adjourned, an injunction secured and Bishop Wright compelled to relinquish his claim.”

A little more than four months later, on Dec. 20, Milton learned that his sons had done the impossible.

Ongoing, the brothers are credited with having parents who tolerated their mischief and propensity for creating things that either kept them out of trouble or reduced the tedium of their chores. One assumes that acceptance of that family relationship is preferable to believing the hard-headed Milton Wright wielded a heavy club.

Evidently he didn’t. The other brothers don’t seem to show much of a mark on the 20^th century. Reuchlin and Lorin did attend Hartsville College for a time but both dropped out, not interested in the ministry. Katherine, who managed some of the Wright business affairs, was also a teacher and an active voice in women’s voting rights. She died at age 54.

The Wrights spent considerable time in eastern Indiana, mostly in Richmond and New Castle, where some of Milton’s court fights played out in real time, both in court and in churches. Various authors say Milton Wright preached occasionally at Old Franklin Church, taking his buggy from Richmond south along what eventually became SR 101. Probably stopped in Roseburg for a drink of lemonade. The family tagged along.

It’s also logical to assume that the family spent at least one night there either before or after the service. It is also likely they attended services at Fairfield Methodist. A Christian church also existed on Bath Springs Road in Union County. (Not sure on the denomination.)

Louis Chmiel, in his history Ohio: Home of the Wright Brothers, says Orville Wright, as a teen, visited his grandfather’s farm in Union County. By then of course, their uncle Daniel Koerner owned the land. The farm is today occupied by a campground, just north of the junction of SR 101 and Old 101.

It was in these moments that the brothers learned to ply their trade and grasp the properties of metals, woods, canvas. Various anecdotes attributing their love of science to that of their parents and elders – it all makes sense.

As educated boys, they learned to read and understand mechanical and geometric science. Propulsion was becoming a topic, as new forms of vehicular traffic took to the roads. The Wrights wanted to take to the skies. Until the gasoline-powered engine was developed, airplane flight was next to impossible.

But it’s likely in the summer of 1903, when Milton Wright spent day after weary day publishing his church bulletin, nodding as more summons were delivered for him to report to court, he relished the question:

“So, Bishop, how are your sons?”

“Beats me. They’ve spent another summer on the beach in North Carolina. Probably met some girls there.”

The brothers, for their part, weren’t well known in inventing circles up until their famous flight, one that they conceded later on was publicized without their permission and that many parts of the story were wrong. We’ve had time to correct that.

The Dayton Herald, on Dec. 24, 1903, a week after news emerged of the Kitty Hawk flight, said this of the brothers:

“Wilbur and Orville, as inseparable as twins would be, devoted their spare time to the theories and experiments of others in aerial navigation and to the study of the philosophy of the air, its currents, its lifting power, its drift, its effects on curved surfaces, etc.

“They have in the four annual vacations, spent at Killdevil Hills, near Kitty Hawk, N.C., experimented with their gliding machines each year with increased success.” The brothers were in the bicycle business in Dayton, creating their own designs.

When word got back to Ohio, the news was – as much as was possible before 24-hour television – astonishing for people who had no grasp of the concept of air travel, even if it was only 850 feet.

A dispatch from Dayton and published in the Richmond Item:

“The telegram (received by Milton Wright) says that they have achieved gratifying success with their flying machine built by them in this city. The Wright Flyer as they call it, is a double-decked, curved aeroplane driven by a small but powerful gasoline motor, with aerial screw propellers. The speed was 31 miles an hour, meaning that they moved at the rate of 10 miles an hour against a 21-mile-an-hour wind.”

The whole of it was, the Wright Flyer was no accident, not simply the product of a thousand flops, do-overs or manufactured outcomes. These guys knew what they were doing. Actually, the Wright Flyer is not the first airplane ever invented. It’s just the first one that worked.

They were also aggressive in protecting their patents and never backed down when other inventors tried to stake a claim on any of the components. The strategy has also been attributed to the slow growth of the aviation industry because competition was stifled.

The Dayton News:

“It is distinctly a flying machine. It has no gas bag or balloon attachments or any kind but is supported by a pair of aero-curves or wings, having an area of 510 square feet. It measures a little more than 40 feet from tip to tip. The weight is slightly over 700 pounds.”

The Wrights spent the next several years as guests of some of the most celebrated people in Europe. They seem to have been relatively humble throughout although quite heady as businessmen.

Wilbur died in 1912 of typhoid (not from an airplane crash), Orville lived until 1948. Wilbur’s estate, when tallied in October 1912, was estimated at nearly $280,000 (about $1.3 million today). Neither of the brothers ever married.

Wilbur came quite close to graduating from Richmond High School but was moved to Dayton ahead of that. He was posthumously given a diploma in 1994.

We can’t specifically say we owe the energies of flight and space technology to a farm in Harmony Township or a tiny church on a narrow asphalt road, but we can safely say that the events that make our history are the result of connecting a lot of arranged facts and saying, well -- it was possible.

Wright guys – Part I

 Years ago, two boys were hiking through the woods and came to a stream. The younger boy suggested they find a log and float across the stream. The older boy said, “I have a better idea. Let's build a machine and fly over!”

Thus began the legend of Wilbur and Orville Wright, who in theory did see the other side of the stream near Quakertown during their pre-teen years. Later on, they took a train to Kitty Hawk, which is in North Carolina. They'd have flown there but the airplane had not yet been invented.

A dozen definitive histories have been promoted as the legitimate story of the Fathers of Flight. Most of them offer a paragraph or two about how the boys’ mother Susan was from Union County, Indiana. This is not one of those definitive histories, but it’s still informative. Tell your friends you read it here.

That tidbit is enough to put Wilbur and Orville a whole lot closer to Brookville than you imagined, thanks to a gimmick from the Department of Arranged Facts. Or, DAFT.

It’s not like we make this stuff up. What we know is useful. It’s how we do history that can be shared, not stashed on the top shelf of a dusty old bookcase.

To get to Kitty Hawk by way of the Dunlapsville bridge, we have to go to a cozy place in Virginia, which is where John G. Koerner and his loving bride Catherine lived in the earlier part of the 1800s. For reasons uncertain – but explainable – they left Loudoun County (northern part of Virginia) and came to Union County. Before they left, daughter Susan was born. That was 1831.

Union County was still quite undeveloped at the time and it’s likely John G. Koerner seized on that as an opportunity to become king of his own destiny. That’s a common theme across the years when Indiana went from land technically owned by native tribes to parcels of taxable property owned by squatters from elsewhere.

Koerner’s history is glossed over as much as it’s fleshed out. He’s far more important to this story than we realize as we see where he landed and why. To learn that, we’ll head over to DAFT headquarters and inquire.

The early settlers to Indiana came for the same reasons they always did as America was colonized – to worship as they wanted, to start their own communities and share like goals and dreams. Koerner was a Presbyterian, at the time a very hard-core Protestant branch that despised slavery.

Fighting it in Virginia was a lost cause. Instead, the Presbyterians joined the Quakers and the Universalists and the Brethren sects in heading for places where slavery didn’t exist. Indiana had always been a beacon and, into the 1830s, it still was.

Koerner’s wife Catherine’s maiden name was Frey (or Fry.)

The name was connected with United Brethren churches, including one at Farm Hill. For the unenlightened, Farm Hill is also known as Old Franklin, the brick church you see on the left as you approach Fairfield Causeway toward the Union County line.

Since Catherine’s kin were already in the area, it’s possible she persuaded her husband to “remove the family” to Indiana. Soon thereafter, the Koerners became members of the United Brethren church. The family on Catherine’s side has a robust history from Cincinnati north to an area that eventually became Dayton. It’s interesting, not useful for our story.

Old Franklin Church, incidentally, has been conducting services on that spot since the late 1830s. It’s recognized as a historical landmark. Its cemetery includes many of the Whitewater Valley’s original families, including the Koerner family.

• John
• Catherine (wife)
• Daniel (son)
• Elmira (Daniel’s spouse)

John Koerner’s footprint is larger than his grave site, but he doesn’t present much in the way of prominence. He evidently was never an elected official or a power broker. Simply a farmer who built carriages and had a knack for fixing things. At one point he appears to have been something of a landowner and, as such, somewhat affluent for his time. An 1854 classified ad in the Liberty Herald pinpoints him.

Real Estate for Sale – The undersigned offers for sale a house, lots of ground with all the appurtenances on the State road leading from Dunlapsville to Billingsville … it is one-half mile south of Moses Freeman and about the same distance east of James Martin’s.

Or just a mile or so east of what was once Quakertown. The “State” road is most likely a well-traveled path. You could probably hike it now. Or you could drive there.

Still, a trek in those days from the Vale of Dunlapsville to Old Franklin, which was in another county, no small task. Maybe one of the kids can invent an airplane, huh?

Great idea, said Susan Koerner, who’s mysterious in this yarn as well, although the whole of the Wright story is explained away by what seems to be a form of familial tolerance. It makes sense if we want it to make sense. If not, there are other shiny objects. Just be home in time for supper and your chores.

This is inching you closer to the Flying Wrights, but you have to learn first about Bishop Milton Wright. That’s Susan’s husband, father of the whole family that netted us rocket ships to Mars. (That may have been Goddard or Einstein but neither of them caught a fish in the Whitewater River. Then again, Einstein. ...)

The accepted tale of John Koerner was that he was his own thinker (great trait) and a man who enjoyed making things from scraps of stuff just lying around. Throughout this odyssey of being a builder, waxer, painter, handyman, farmer, mogul, all-around smart guy, the story is that daughter Susan picked up on it.

Most likely she was given a broom and told to stand over in one corner and “hold up that end” and all the while asking, “Father, why is your thumb all black and blue?” (Nail jump’t up and bit me. Mind yourself, girl!)

Other histories diverge on this, claiming Susan was well-equipped to handle any tool her father gave her.

Susan was told in the early 1850s that she needed to learn something besides crude language and applying varnish to wagon seats. Off she went to college, probably because she was too snobby for the local boys and the only place to find her a husband was in Hartsville, Indiana.

Hartsville, heartbeat of the United Brethren Church. It’s not far from Columbus. In those days, it was a lot farther from Columbus. The college doesn’t have an extensive history. Its archives are in Huntington, Indiana, which is where the school moved following a disastrous fire in the late 1890s.

Stories don’t tell us much about what Susan Koerner was expected to learn at the church-managed school, but she reportedly excelled in mathematics and science and was credited by one biographer of later being the most significant contributor to the education of her children.

It was at Hartsville where Susan met Milton, and the romance was instant. Milton, who was devout in his United Brethren principles, began to preach. Milton was born in Rush County and some of his history suggests he preached at a denominational church in Andersonville, western Franklin County.

He also preached at Old Franklin.

Pinning the Wright Brothers to northern Franklin County is a breeze now. Seats and tables in full upright position. Please fasten safety belts. Flight 1 is about to depart.

Take me out to the ball game, hopefully

 For a week in 1896, Connersville had an actual professional baseball team. While there's a long history of semi-pro ball in the Whitewater Valley, this league -- the Indiana State League -- was propped up by baseball enthusiasts in Anderson, Kokomo, Elwood, Rushville and Logansport.

The league came together in July of '96 with plans to play a 9-week schedule. Two games a weekend, even though it was technically against the law to have games on Sunday. These teams decided to ignore that law and nobody in Connersville objected. Other places in the state where religious zeal was more prominent, baseball was shut down on Sunday -- and strictly enforced.

Jack Reiss,
pitcher for the 1915
Connersville Grays,
was also a pitcher
for St. Louis
in the Federal League,
a 2-year major league.  

The end of July, one day before the season started, the Connersville team disbanded over some sort of financial bickering. So, they forfeited their first game to Anderson. Oh, well..............

But wait! The next day, they reorganized and beat Rushville 12-7. In that game, Rushville player McCormick tripped Brennan from Connersville and got a couple of fists to the face as a result. Fun stuff. They won the second game 5-1 to sweep the DH.

Marion was supposed to have a team but Connersville got that slot instead. Rockville, western Indiana, wanted in but the others decided it was too far away. Their manager dared anybody to play them and put up $500 as a lure. Nobody accepted. Anderson was the first to fold, unable to come up the $25 the visiting team was supposed to get.

Connersville was 2-1 when the league collapsed because the owners had more ambition than dollars, and most of them never had enough cash from attendance to pay the fee they were required to pay to visiting teams. In other words, an idea with no concept of what to do next.

The teams went on playing as independents, often against the same players who were in the pro league.

One pitcher named George Simons for Rushville walked off the field because his team was so terrible.

Teams signed players from nearby towns, guys who were generally available. It's not likely the talent across the board was very good. Elmer Applegate, a fan favorite from Brookville, was the catcher for Rushville.

The league reorganized in 1915 but didn't last an entire season. That league was never fully professional although some players were compensated for their efforts -- depending on the gate. Connersville's franchise was considered the league's strongest.

Teams were also in Rushville, New Castle, Richmond, with traveling teams technically based in Cambridge City and Cincinnati.

The league defied the odds a few more times, reorganizing again sometime around 1919 with better franchises and a more durable schedule. And if that didn't kill it, chatter emerged again in 1944 about still another form of Indiana State League. As of now, though, it's officially defunct. Trust us on that.

Creamery, a town's best friend

FAIRFIELD'S NEW INDUSTRY (1903)

Creamery a Benefit to All Classes – Improved Trade

-- From the Laurel Review, published in the Indiana Historical Society archives

Fairfield is proud, and well may be, of her new industry – a creamery. It is a branch of a larger one at Liberty and is the joint property of a group of farmers who began, a few years ago, in a small way and soon found the business profitable. The branch at Fairfield has not yet been established a month, but farmers are eagerly supplying it with milk, and it is said, many more cows will be maintained hereafter.

The system in vogue is for the farmers to deliver their milk each morning and be credited with whatever butter fat the “run” contains after being put through a separator. When the new milk is unloaded, a tiny dipper with an upright handle is dipped into the can and a sample of the milk is put in a glass jar labeled with the farmer's name.

At stated periods the contents of the jars are tested and the percentage of butter fat arrived at. It is said that thus far farmers are getting about equal to 22 cents for their milk product, where before they received from 12 to 17 cents in the form of home-made butter and the trouble of churning, working, etc., is dispensed with.

It should be stated that about 80 per cent of the milk, after being run through the separator, is returned to the farmer for use in feeding, etc.

And no one is better pleased with the new arrangement than are the Fairfield local merchants. With the natural trade rivalry that exists and the desire to pay the best price possible for produce, money has been lost, not made, by them in handling butter, at least so say four of the five in business there.

Now, every morning the farmers or some of their family come to town in great numbers and the effect on trade is already perceptible. The public square of half a block in the heart of the village has been fenced in with a rack for tying horses on all four of its sides, and for a time each morning this whole space is filled.

***

By spring 1903, the creamery was well-established in Fairfield, according to the newspapers of the day.

More about the creamery as a cooperative enterprise. The concept was gaining traction as early as the late 1800s but required enough cows, so to speak, to make the business practical. A large creamery sprang up in Brookville in 1906, fueled by Cincinnati investment.

The creamery also produced ice, which had significant practical applications for more than just the dairy industry. I believe the creamery was in a spot between the Town Hall and the Mercantile building on Main Street. 

Stories said the building had been owned by Aaron Miller. A man named Bert (Burt) Clark was considered a spokesman, and he may have been the principal owner or manager of the operation, both in Fairfield and Liberty. 

Henry McMahon was also listed as a principal spokesman when a creamery operation was being planned in Brookville. Joseph McMahon was named in a separate story for having produced a robust amount of milk from 11 cows for the operation. McMahons lived in the Jersey area north of Fairfield. Elwood and C.R. Dare were named in other stories as participating farmers.

The Brookville operations were run by the French Brothers, who managed a much larger operation. One assumes there was some commercial interaction with the Fairfield-Liberty business. One of the French stations was destroyed by fire in 1911.

I don't know when the creameries stopped being profitable. 

***

Addendum: Fencing in the town square -- an image that isn't easy to forget. Watch where you walk!

The worst floods

The whole of this blog is dedicated to a community that ceased to exist so that others would suffer less. In a sense, we are grateful that America was able to at least attempt to accomplish it. Early blog items from 2015 will explore this story in detail. This is just a sample of what we knew from the great floods of 1913, 1937 and 1959. There were other floods. In 1913, the first-worst news was the Omaha tornado. They didn't know that was probably the best news they'd get all week.