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 I, Cecil A. Steeves, residing at 405 Maplewood Avenue, Bridgeport
Connecticut, declare the following to be fast to my best knowledge
and belief.
When a boy I lived only one block from the late Gustave Whitehead,
my father's business having been located for over thirty years
on Spruce Street, while Mr. Whitehead lived and did most of his
experimenting on Pine Street. Naturally, boy fashion, I was greatly
interested in what Mr. Whitehead was doing, spending a great deal
of my time there, both after school hours and during vacations,
and he explained much to me about flying machines. Many and many
a time I have watched him test a plane while it traveled around
and around, in a circle, these tests taking place in his yard,
with the plane tied by a rope to a stake which had been driven
into the ground, the yard being so small that the plane would
have had to have been dismantled in order to have tested it elsewhere.
During these tests the plane would rise from three to five feet
off the ground. At a later date Mr. Whitehead had a trial flight
on the old Gilman estate located on Fairfield Avenue, between
Orland and Elsworth Streets, the plane at this flight being up
in the air.
Mr. Whitehead then moved his shop to Cherry Street where he continued
to do his experimenting, this location being opposite the old
Wilmot and Hobbs factory, now occupied by the American Tube and
Stamping Company. It was here that 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
prophesy.
Signed and Witnessed |
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