Octave Chanute to Wilbur Wright

Chicago, December 23, 1905

I think you will be gratified in reading the enclosed letter from Mr. Wenham, which please return when you have read it.1

I wish to you, to Orville and to your sister, in fact to all members of your family, a merry Christmas and a happy New Year, together with ample success in your undertakings.

1 Wenham to Chanute, Dec. 8, 1905, hailing the Wrights, success. Wenham was especially delighted as it "removes me from the list of cranks who always stated I was advocating an impossibility." Inveighing against recent truly impossible proposals, he cited those of Montgomery "who had a poor credulous Irishman taken up in a balloon and let go just to lose his life."

Wenham died August 11, 1908, aged eighty four, and was probably unaware of the stir made in France three days before by Wilbur Wright's first demonstration flights.

Wilbur Wright to Octave Chanute, December 27, 1905