No mention was made of the story in the Journal the following day, though it did get brief attention in the Dayton Daily News on an inside page. Elsewhere in the country, a ludicrously inaccurate account of what the brothers had done got much play as a result of a story that appeared on the front page of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot under a banner headline: “FLYING MACHINE SOARS 3 MILES IN TEETH OF HIGH WIND OVER HILLS AND WAVES AT KITTY HAWK ON CAROLINA COAST.”
On the afternoon they had sent their telegram from the Kitty Hawk weather station, the brothers had specifically told the operator on duty, Joseph Dosher, that its content was confidential. When the operator at the Norfolk station asked if he could share the news with a friend at the Virginian-Pilot, the brothers had Dosher cable back, “POSITIVELY NO.”
It had made no difference. From the scant solid information contained in the telegram, the Virginian-Pilot editors concocted an account that was almost entirely contrived. The Wrights’ machine, according to the story, had been launched from a platform and soared to an altitude of 60 feet. It was described as having two six-blade propellers, “one arranged just below the frame so as to exert an upward force when in motion and the other extends horizontally from the rear to the center of the car to furnish upward impetus.” Wilbur’s first historic utterance on flying the three miles was reported to have been, “Eureka!”
Variations of the account appeared in the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, and the Cincinnati Enquirer, among others, but little happened as a consequence.
In Boston, however, two businessmen, brothers Godfrey and Samuel Cabot of the prominent Cabot family, immediately sensed the story’s importance. Godfrey wrote at once to congratulate the Wrights and to ask for more details, which he received in a matter of days. More than satisfied with what he read, he sent off a letter dated December 31 to Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, a distant cousin and known to be a close friend of President Theodore Roosevelt.
It seems to me [Cabot wrote] that this may fairly be said to mark the beginning of flight through the air by men unaided by balloons. It has occurred to me that it would be eminently desirable for the United States Government to interest itself in this invention.
Senator Lodge passed the Cabot letter on to the War Department where nothing came of it. As for the reaction in Dayton, probably not one person in a hundred believed the brothers had actually flown in their machine, or if they had, it could only have been a fluke.
Work at the bicycle shop on West Third Street resumed with, as Charlie Taylor said, no “jig steps” over what had been achieved.
Of course, they were pleased with the flight. But their first word with me, as I remember, was about the motor being damaged when the wind picked up the machine and turned it topsy-turvy. . . . They wanted a new one built right away. . . . They were always thinking of the next thing to do; they didn’t waste much time worrying about the past.
The intention now was to build a heavier version of the Flyer with a more powerful and efficient engine. Nor could they neglect earning an income sufficient to cover expenses both at the shop and at home, not to say the cost of their experiments. As Charlie Taylor would repeatedly remind people, “There wasn’t any other money.”
As it was during the first several months of 1904, bike repairs were numbering a steady fifteen to twenty a week. Then there were the sales of a great variety of bicycle “sundries,” as they were referred to in the shop’s large ledger books, including bike tires ($3.25 each), bike bells (10 cents), lamps ($1.00), pedal guards (5 cents), spokes (10 cents), bike pumps (35 cents). Also, as usual in winter, sharpening ice skates (at 15 cents each) provided a steady additional sum.
Sales of the brothers’ own line of bicycles, the larger part of their income, would not pick up until April. So to have a sufficient number on hand took up most of their time at the workbenches behind the shop. The only wages to be covered were Charlie Taylor’s $18 a week and Carrie Kayler’s $2.50.
To help cut expenses for continuing work on their flying machine, it was decided that further expeditions to Kitty Hawk, with all the attendant costs of travel and shipment of tools and material, could be dispensed with by finding a suitable stretch of open land close to home to serve as a practice field. Wilbur and Orville also wanted Charlie Taylor at hand, and there was concern, too, that the wind-driven sands of Kitty Hawk could play havoc with their engine.