Three witnesses along with Mr. Whitehead himself told of the Wright brothers having visited him in Bridgeport:



Affidavit of Anton Pruckner, Jan. 3, 1936

He was visited on several occasions by the Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, during the period between 1900 and 1903. I believe the time of their visits was actually prior to 1902 because I left Bridgeport for two years, going sometime in 1902. Upon my return I again worked with Gustave Whitehead at times with his experiments. Picture No. 25 shows the shop which was constructed on Cherry Street where the Wright brothers visited. 

Affidavit of Cecial A. Steeves, Oct. 10, 1936

"...the Wright brothers visited Mr. Whitehead during the early 1900's, coming from Ohio and under the guise of offering to help finance his inventions, actually received inside information that aided them materially in completing their own plane. I was at the shop with him when they arrived and waited outside while they talked inside. After they had gone away, Mr. Whitehead turned to me and said, "Now since I have given them the secrets of my invention they will probably never do anything in the way of financing me", this proving to have been a true prophecy.

Statement of Junius Harworth, Oct. 7, 1934

In a statement made to Whitehead researchers (quoted in "History by Contract" by Maj. William O'Dwyer, p. 123), Junius Harworth said he'd been so curious about the purpose of the Wrights' visit to Whitehead that he tried to overhear their conversation inside the shop by standing on a wheel outside one of the shop's windows. He said he slipped off the wheel, getting grease on his pants and was disciplined by his mother for having don so.

Affidavit, Mrs. C. Crittendon, Oct. 11, 1964

 

I, Mrs. Crittendon, recall Mr. Whitehead talking to me one morning after I walked over to the fence while he was looking at his flowers and we got to talking. I said, "I hear you have an airplane". He said, ""Yah." I said, "Don't you fly it?". He said, "Well, when someone takes what you have worked on all your life", and I said, "how did that happen?". Then he said, he wrote someplace and the Wright brothers came to see him. He said something about some patents and his losing his rights to some of his inventions. He said he didn't have any money at the time and he wrote to the Wrights looking for help. They came out here and took some papers away with them. Mr. Whitehead said he visited somewhere, I can't recall where, but he did say he visited the Wrights, and they had an engine that was his design and they were using it. He said, it was the same as mine.



John Whitehead, Sept. 3, 1934, pp. 6 & 7

John Whitehead (brother of Gustave Whitehead)

In his letter to Stella Randolph dated Sept. 3, 1934, pp. 6 & 7 (numbered 5 & 6) - later notarially sworn - Whitehead's brother, John, decribed Whitehead's feelings about the Wright brothers:

 

"Mr. Beach, as Aeronautical Editor of Scientific American of those Days, was in contact with the Wright Bro. and according to my point of view it was very easy and very likely he passed either intentionally or unintentionally Ideas onto the Wright Bros., moreso as he was pro American but I have no prove that he did so. My brother was surely bitter when he heard that the Wright Bros. got a patent on the very I deas we intented to patent and was told we had to demonstrate the possibility first."