The Wright Neighbours

In 1901,  Reginald L. Fessenden,  a Canadian scientist on Thomas Edison´s staff and under contract with The Weather Bureau,  came to North Carolina's Outer Banks to experiment with wireless telegraphy.

At the time,  wires were used for the transmission of telegraph signals and scientists were not at all sure whether sounds could be transmitted great distances through the air without large amounts of power being used,  the best chance of success was expected from transmitting  -  or 'telephoning' as was the term then in use  -  over water.

Three 50-foot towers were erected  -  at King's Point in Buxton,  at Manteo and at Cape Henry,  Virginia  -  so work on a system to fine-tune radio signals could continue,  Fessenden,  bringing along his wife wife,  establishing his own base in Manteo.

The following April,  of 1902,  he sent musical notes across the 45-mile expanse of water from Hatteras and received them loud and clear,  using just three watts of power.  "I can now,"  he proclaimed,  "telephone as far as I can telegraph,  which is across the Pacific Ocean if desired".

His wife, Helen,  remembered her time on the islands in her 1940 memoir,  ''Regular transportation on the island in those days was by rail from Norfolk or Elizabeth City,  by boat from there to the landing on the west side of Roanoke Island and a tedious drive from there along roads of deep shifting sands to Manteo,  a town of two hotels and several stores".

''Directly after breakfast the men would start off in a rickety conveyance for the wireless station on the west side of the island,''  Helen remembered,  ''They took sandwiches with them and brewed coffee at lunch time. Home again about six and,  after supper,  two or three hours of office work,  correspondence,  patent applications,  official Weather Bureau returns and accounts.

''Sometimes in the afternoons after lessons and housework,  Ken [the Fessenden's son] and I would walk the four miles to the station to drive home with the men.  In spite of the ticks which brushed from the undergrowth onto our clothes and which had to be shaken off very carefully,  these walks were beautiful;  sandy,  shifting soil and low underbrush,  but overhead stately live oaks,  long strewed pines,  holly and mistletoe.

''Near the station a strip of marsh stretched between the beach and the interior and this had to be crossed.  We negotiated it by taking off our shoes and stockings and wading happily through the amber water.  When we learned that [water] moccasins were apt to lurk there,  the edge was taken off our excitement.

''Mosquitoes,  ticks and chiggoes [sic] were the pests of the island and the smell of decaying fish used as fertilizer was another unpleasant feature.  Mosquitoes were the worst since they could invade our territory whereas the other two were met only when we invaded theirs.  Against mosquitoes the men wore voluminous veils of white mosquito netting tied around their hats and coming down well over the chest and tied with another drawstring.  When the pests were very bad,  sheets of newspaper were wound cuff-like around ankles and wrists'.'

Fessenden was not the only inventor on the Outer Banks in the early years of the century and across Croatan Sound smoke curled up from the camp of a pair of bicycle mechanics from Ohio.  At Kitty Hawk,  the Wright brothers' heavier-than-air flying experiments were well underway.

Being that the area was so very remote,  you were likely to know your neighbors and,  while Fessenden was in Manteo,  he became close lifetime friends with two other entrepreneurs who were inventors as well.  The Wright brothers,  Orville and Wilbur,  were experimenting with gliders in nearby Kill Devil Hills in preparation for their powered flight experiments.  One year later, they too would become world renown.

''While Reg and his men were making wireless history on Ronaoke Island,  history of a vastly different form was being made at Kitty Hawk by the Wright brothers,''  Helen said.  ''It was a companionable thought that in this element, the air,  two men not so many miles away from us were achieving mastery in one form while we at Manteo were achieving mastery in another'.

By April 1902,  Fessenden knew he was closing in on an answer.  ''I have more good news for you,''  he wrote his attorney,  ''You may remember I telephoned about a mile in 1900 and thought it would take too much power to telephone across the Atlantic.  Well,  I can now telephone as far as I can telegraph,  which is across the Pacific Ocean if desired.

"I have sent varying musical notes from Hatteras and received them here with but three watts of energy, and they were very loud and plain i.e. as loud as in an ordinary telephone.  The new receiver is a wonder ! ''

Fessenden's system made an astronomical leap in distributing Weather Bureau signals and in obtaining data for making forecasts.

But Fessenden's success with his invention was soured by a deteriorating relationship with The Weather Bureau.  Fessenden eventually resigned from the project and little more was accomplished on The Outer Banks.

''As arranged,  Reg left the bureau in August,  1902.  The work between Manteo and Hatteras was continued by the bureau in a desultory fashion for a few months,  then the stations were closed and the equipment ordered sold at auction,''  Helen remembered.

Wilbur and Orville Wright

The Ohio boys were encouraged from childhood to pursue intellectual interests and,  interestingly,  it was their mother,  Susan,  the daughter of a carriage maker,  who was the mechanically adept of their parents.

In 1878, their father,  Milton Wright,  brought home a rubber band powered helicopter from one of his trips and the boys began to build models of it.

In 1890, Wilbur and Orville started their own printing firm building their own press from damaged buggy parts and a tombstone but they soon got caught up in the bicycling craze and,  in 1893,  in order to supplement their income,  the boys began to sell and repair bicycles.

In 1899 Wilbur wrote to The Smithsonian Institution expressing his opinion that he believed human flight was possible.  He assured them that he was an enthusiast,  but not a crank and asked them to send whatever publications they could to him to help in this endeavour.

Finding all the then published data to be unreliable,  the Wright brothers built their own wind tunnel to test and measure how to life a flying machine up into the air and they were the first to realize that a long,  slender wing shape was the ideal structural design for flying.

Wilbur devised a control system of wing warping,  twisting an empty bicycle tub box with the ends removed by using pulleys,  to twist the wings of a biplane,  allowing it to roll to the left or to the right and change its position in relation to oncoming wind and,  having adapted the system to control a kite,  the brothers then developed the system further for a glider.

Choosing the remote area at Kitty Hawk for their first experimental flights because of the strong winds that blew over The Atlantic Ocean and the tall sand dunes and the soft sands to cushion falling,  the boys arrived there by boat with their 17-foot glider in 1900 and set up camp at Kill Devil Hill to begin their tests but,  the glider's wings producing less lift than they had expected,  Wilbur only being able to stay airborne for about ten seconds,  the boys returned again in 1901 and faired little better and again returned home for the winter.

In 1902 the persistent Wright brothers tried another machine that flew over 1,000 glides and in 1903 the Wrights returned to Kill Devil Hills with a new 40-foot,  605-pound 'Flyer' but,  when they tested it on December 14,  1903,  the 'Flyer' was damaged and required repair.  Then,  on December 17,  1903,  the Wrights made a second attempt despite the 27 mph wind.

Orville positioned himself in the flyer and at 10:35 A.M. left the ground,  keeping the Flyer aloft for 120 feet,  with Wilbur running alongside.  The brothers took turns flying three more times that day,  increasing their flight distance each time.

Their fourth and last flight of the day,  Wilbur's second,  was the best,  the 'Flyer' flying 852 feet in 59 seconds.