By Norman K. Styer

nstyer@loudounnow.com

On Dec. 17, 1929, a crowd estimated at 1,000 people gathered in Hillsboro to witness the unveiling of a roadside historical marker highlighting the birth site of one of the world’s most important mothers of invention—or at least mother of inventors.

Next Friday, 92 years after that ceremony, a new crowd will gather to witness the unveiling of a restored marker that honors Susan Koerner Wright, the mother of aviation pioneers Wilbur and Orville Wright, as well as her daughter, Katherine Wright Haskell, who played in important role in guiding her brothers following their mother’s death.

The marker was displayed along the town’s main throughfare for nearly a century, before being removed during construction of the ReThink9 traffic calming and municipal infrastructure project. During its hiatus from public view, the Short Hill Historical Society, Hillsboro Preservation Foundation, and the Town of Hillsboro undertook a restoration of the memorial. 

Susan Koerner Wright was born April 30, 1831, on the Hillsboro farm where her German immigrant father, John Gottlieb Koener, worked as a wagonmaker. She left Loudoun County in 1853 to attend Hartville College in Indiana. That year, she met and married Milton Wright and they raised their family in Indiana and Ohio. She is credited with instilling in her boys the skills to create, starting with their own toys and playthings, and the desire to pursue intellectual interests. The marker describes her as “A notable woman who largely guided and wisely inspired her sons to their immortal discovery.”

At the time of her death in 1889, Orville and Wilbur were young men and their younger sister is credited as a close collaborator and vital supporter. The marker memorializes her “sisterly devotion” that “aided in giving mankind access to the unlimited aerial highway.”

The effort to memorialize the birthplace of the Wright Brothers came from an unusual source: the Rivanna Garden Club of Charlottesville. It was only after its members launched the memorial project that they learned Wright wasn’t born in the nearby Hillsboro in Albemarle County—since renamed Yancey Mills—but in the western Loudoun County town. But they pressed ahead with the effort.

According to the account of the unveiling ceremony on the front page of the Dec. 19, 1929 Blue Ridge Herald newspaper, five members were present at the ceremony, along with representative of the University of Virginia, and five members of the extended Wright family.

Hillsboro Mayor D.T. Link formally accepted the marker on behalf of the community. Longtime Loudoun attorney Wilbur C. Hall, then representing Loudoun in the House of Delegates, also address the crowd. 

“Today air-minded Americans turn to this modest village to pay tribute to this departed mother of Orville and Wilbur Wright, genii of the twentieth century, who, 26 years ago today, made the first successful flight with a heavier-than-air machine,” the article quoted him as saying.

Nine decades later, today’s Hillsboro leaders plan no less of a tribute.

The memorial rededication program, scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m. Friday Dec. 17, will feature remarks by U.S. Rep. Jennifer Wexton, groundbreaking commercial pilot Laura Savino, and historian Eugene Scheel. Also attending will be a representative of the Rivanna Garden Club, Lori Morin.

An extra tribute will come in the form of a flyover of some 20 airplanes being organized by the Leesburg-based Smokehouse Pilots Club.

Mayor Roger Vance said the rededication also is being used in the Hillsboro Charter Academy to promote its STEM programs, and students will be included in the program. “It’s an opportunity to promote to the younger kids that women have a role in aviation as well,” Vance said.

Although the sign has been on display for more than 90 years, it’s likely relatively few have had an opportunity to stop and read it. Until this year, it was posted on a busy highway with no sidewalks. After the town’s transformational ReThink9 project, that should change.

“Now, people can actually walk by a see it without taking their live in their hands,” Vance noted.