Col. Edward M. House was a Whitehead customer:
Colonel Edward M. House was President Woodrow Wilson's foreign policy adviser during and immediately after World War 1. He lived in Bridgeport in the early 1900s and hired Whitehead to build aircraft for him. The photo below shows Col. House (at far left of row) and Whitehead (next to him) together with the No. 21 'Condor' aircraft:
Col. House with Whitehead and the No. 21 aircraft
1934-08-21, Letter Charles Whitehead to S. Randolph
"Mr. Szur, whom I mentioned in this letter, claims he worked for or with a Colonel House and Webster at the time of Mr. Whitehead's early experiments."
The "Mr. Szur" referred to by John Whitehead above is a certain "Frederick Szur". Along with Mari Kopacsi, Szur was interviewed in the 1930s by Harvard's Prof. Crane. Both confirmed witnessing powered biplane flights by Whitehead in the timeframe 1905-1908 at Villa Park in Bridgeport's West End and along State Street. The flights mostly took place around sunset, they said and covered distances up to 100 yards.
[Source: Crane, John B. "Did Whitehead Actually Fly?" National Aeronautic Assn. Magazine, Dec. 1936.]
1934-07-23, Letter J. Harworth to S. Randolph
New York Sun, March 24, 1906
The article below describes a lecture given in New York by the balloonist, Dr. Wellmann, who attempted to fly over the North Pole. The lecture wass attended by Whitehead's customers, Israel Ludlow & Charles Hamilton, as well as by his customer, "Prof. House", whose residence is stated as being "Bridgeport":
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