The first ground crew

For the surfmen, working with the Wrights "was hush-hush at the time, because they would get terminated from their jobs for not being on duty," says Ward's great-grandson Jesse E. Ward III, of Richmond, Va.

Although those in the Outer Banks area were willing to pitch in and help the Wrights, Mayor Harris suspects that villagers of the time did not fully apprehend the historic importance of the experimental flights.

The brothers' gliders "were kites to [residents], and kites were play toys," he says. "And the locals were too concerned with living day to day to tell the world about the Wrights and their experiments."

As he was growing up, talk of the Wrights' experiments "just never came up in [household] conversation," says Daniel (Grady) Tate.

No one made a big deal about Mr. Tate's father, Tom, getting to fly on the Wrights' 1900 glider when Tom was 12 years old. Nor did the family fuss about his uncle Bill Tate, who wrote one of the letters that convinced the Wrights that the area's tall dunes were the place for their historic experiments and who housed them for the early part of 1900.

And few details were mentioned about Grady Tate's grandfather, Dan Tate, whom the Wrights employed to watch the dune camp that housed parts of their gliders until they returned each year.

But Mrs. Daniels remembers her father-in-law describing how he watched the Wrights "mimicking the birds to see if they could understand how birds flew," she says. "They would run along the sand dunes and wave their arms up and down and move as the birds changed their flight direction."

John T. Daniels "thought the Wright brothers were fine gentlemen, educated men," she adds. "But he didn't consider he'd made any great contribution [to their efforts]."

At first, the local Western Union telegraph operator, Alpheus Drinkwater, thought the Wrights were "little more than bicycle mechanics from Dayton," said his daughter, Marguerite Booth.

Mrs. Booth, who still lives a short drive west of Kitty Hawk in Manteo, said her father thought their "contraptions looked like cheesecloth-covered machines."

Mr. Drinkwater may have been skeptical at first, but his attitude changed when the news of the first flight came to his door. Drinkwater sent a telegraph message from the brothers to alert their family and the outside world that their flight had been successful.

It was the birth of modern aviation - in a then-remote section of coastal North Carolina.

Approximately 10 descendants of Kitty Hawk residents who aided the Wrights in their quest will reenact the first successful powered flight for the First Flight Centennial Celebration on Dec. 17 at the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kitty Hawk. Most of the reenactors are descendants of surfmen.

Proving to be as helpful in the Wright centennial as his grandfather was to the famed aviators, Mr. Ward tracked down the descendants and organized the reenactment. He also researched details such as the navy-blue wool uniforms the surfmen wore and had replicas of the garments tailored for the participants.

• For more information on the First Flight Centennial Celebration activities, which take place Dec. 12-17, see www.firstflight centennial.org.

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