Original Documents. What Really Happened at Kill Devil Hills December 17, 1903

Harry Moore, reporter, who "scooped" the December 17, 1903, Wright story when he was nineteen years old.

Readers, I am publishing some original primary documents on this blog in order to get the information out to the public right now

I will continue with the story of the Wright Flyer wings shortly.

David McCullough, a reputable historian, has just published a book called The Wright Brothers. He has admitted that he knew nothing about the subject matter when he started, and that he relied on Tom Crouch, Senior Curator of the National Air and Space Museum, for his research.

Tom Crouch has a highly biased agenda. He is a publicized defender of the contract that the Smithsonian signed with the Wright family whereby the Smithsonian must support that the Wright brothers were the first to fly -- or they may lose the "Wright Flyer" on display there to the Wright family.  

The documents I am publishing over a short time period will open to question many of the published statements of the Wright brothers about the events of December 17, 1903, when they claimed they were the first to make a manned, powered, controlled, sustained flight from level ground with their engine power alone.

For an explanation of the provenance of these documents,  I am first publishing in full, the statement that owner, Steve Fritts, made to me and in following posts, the documents he shared with me. Steve is  a collector of old documents, and was given these papers by the daughter of Harry Moore, the reporter, who "scooped" the Wright story on December 17, 1903. Documents will be published here that support Harry Moore's statements. 

Note that Tom Crouch knows of the existence of these documents, but has not made their contents available to the public or, apparently, to such historians as David McCullough.

 I might add and I will repeat that Harry Moore and the Life Savers didn't know that a flight made from a hill can not be considered a  powered, sustained flight

On 1/12/2015 7:27 AM, Steve Fritts wrote to  me:

Marcia,

Here is the story of how I obtained the first flight story.  I am not related to Harrry P. Moore and only know them through my research and curiosity into how the Virginian-Pilot newspaper got the story.

I live in the northern suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia.

The handwritten rough draft of the story of the Wright Brothers' first flight was published in the Virginian-Pilot newspaper December 18 1903 and was written by Harry P. Moore, who was a young cub reporter  trying to break in full time with the Virginian-Pilot newspaper.  He had been keeping up with the Wright Brothers’ glider experiments in 1903 and made friends with coastguardsmen Dough and Daniels, who promised him they would tell him he would be the first person to know if a successful flight was made. 

No other reporter knew about the flight until he received word the morning of December 17 from Dough and Daniels through Norfolk telegraph operator C.C. Grant.   

Moore was also a freelance correspondent for several out-of town newspapers and sent his story of the first heavier than air flight.  Some published it the next day, some two days later, and others did not believe it and so did not publish the story at all. 

The first few lead paragraphs of the story were written by editor and writer Keville Glennan they are not included in the handwritten story.

I obtained the first flight story in 1989 from Eleanor Harnly, the daughter of Harry P. Moore, who was the cub reporter who wrote the story.

As a collector of historical newspapers and also an employee of the FAA, I was working on an airport project at Elizabeth City, NC which is about an hour from Norfolk.  I placed a want ad in the Virginian-Pilot newspaper asking if anyone had a copy of the original Wright Brothers newspaper to sell (there are none in existence as far as I know).

Ms. Harnly just happened to be looking at the want ads that day and saw my tiny little ad in the Norfolk Virginian-PIlot newspaper.  She called me and invited me to her home.  She could not find the old newspaper that she thought she had, but instead gave me all of the memorabilia of the first flight, including a letter from Orville Wright, letters from the newsmen who were there when they were debating whether or not to publish the story, a letter from C.C. Grant, the Norfolk telegraph operator who passed the news from Kitty Hawk to Harry P. Moore, and the handwritten first flight story itself.  I have photos of me and my wife when we met her and her husband.

Tom Crouch at the Smithsonian was very interested in all of this and found it "fascinating." when I sent copies of it to him years ago.  This is the story that Henry Ford wanted to purchase for his collection (he offered $1200.00 back in 1930).

Steve Fritts / Dunwoody, Georgia 

For more about this story, please see "The Big Story":  http://www.virginialiving.com/virginiana/history/the-big-story/#next

To be continued...