The Bergdoll’s Wright Brothers Airplane
Since 1933, The Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia has reported that it acquired its remarkable 1911 Wright Brothers airplane from Philadelphia aviation pioneer and draft dodger Grover Bergdoll through a Bergdoll-written donation letter to a museum volunteer, who then gave the airplane to the museum’s Hall of Aviation, to commemorate the Wright Brothers 30th anniversary of flight. Now, 90 years later, when asked to produce the letter for research into my historical nonfiction book, The Bergdoll Boys (Brookline Books, 2023), the museum changed its explanation for how it acquired the priceless airplane, saying it does not have a donation letter from Bergdoll, and suggesting it probably never did.
Instead, the museum now claims Bergdoll made an oral agreement with its volunteer, William Sheahan (a Bergdoll acquaintance), who removed the airplane from Bergdoll’s property in 1933, had it restored, flown again, and exhibited in Philadelphia as the most original Wright Brothers airplane in the world, albeit with scant information about the Bergdoll provenance.
Incredibly, the museum now says Bergdoll, in 1933, verbally told a man he hadn’t seen in 20 years he could have his airplane. And he did it while hiding in Germany as a draft-dodging fugitive escapee, incommunicado with Americans, especially bounty hunters whom Bergdoll shot, killed, or wounded when they tried to kidnap him for trial. And, more incredibly, the museum says it would not have wanted a written agreement because Bergdoll’s assets had been seized by the federal government.
Despite its new claims, the museum has no evidence to support a change in its story of acquiring the Bergdoll airplane. Nor does it have evidence for its original story. The museum retains possession of a now priceless one-of-a-kind historical airplane, obtained from its owner through a third party, without documentation of a valid ownership transfer from anyone in the Bergdoll family. For years, I’ve thoroughly researched these unusual circumstances and presented the details of the Bergdoll airplane acquisition in my book.
The Bergdoll Boys is about wealthy Philadelphia brewery heirs who became celebrity champions in the early 20th Century for auto racing, and pioneer aviators, with Grover learning to fly from Orville Wright astounding people all over eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey as one of few pilots in the sky, the first to circle William Penn’s statue atop Philadelphia City Hall, and fly to Atlantic City.
Around the time Grover and his brother, Erwin, ran from the World War I draft, their airplanes and race cars were stored on their farm property in Delaware County, Pennsylvania where they were subject to looting and the elements of time. My research shows that the last time the Bergdoll’s Wright Brothers airplane and 1911 Fairmount Park Motor Race-winning Benz race car were documented on the Bergdoll property was in an October 8, 1933 article in The Philadelphia Inquirer. Soon after, the Benz went missing and the Wright flyer was taken by Sheahan. To this day, Bergdoll heirs question how their relics were removed from family possession, specifically when Grover was hiding in Germany as America’s number one draft dodger.
Unable to grant my request to read Bergdoll’s purported gifting letter to Sheahan because they couldn’t find one among multiple Bergdoll airplane documents provided to me (including a document claiming the airplane gift was made in a letter), Susannah Carroll, Assistant Curator of Collections and Curatorial at The Franklin Institute provided the following statement, in part:
Though there is overwhelming circumstantial evidence of Mr. Bergdoll’s gift…we have not turned up anything signed by Mr. Bergdoll mentioning his gift. [Y]ou should understand why neither he nor The Institute would desire to have anything in writing documenting the oral gift. Mr. Bergdoll was still a fugitive and his assets had been and continued to be subject to government seizure.
The Franklin Institute’s admission was a surprise to me. How could a prestigious museum accept the airplane as a gift when it had been seized by the federal government? How could it accept the airplane from a third party without documenting a proper acquisition? It may now be in an ethical, if not legal quandary for The Franklin Institute as museums all over the world are reconciling past acquisitions and returning Egyptian antiquities and Nazi-looted art to rightful owners. 60 Minutes recently (December 2023) profiled American museums and private collectors forced to return stolen Cambodian statuary. In my book, I describe how today’s Bergdoll heirs feel about the new revelations – they always believed what they were told by the museum: that the airplane was given to Sheahan in writing. Sheahan then gave it to the museum, apparently without documentation that it was properly acquired.
Has the museum misled the public for 90 years by declaring the acquisition was made with a written document, and now changing course and, without evidence, claiming it was an oral acquisition agreement? It’s an issue that should be discussed.
The Franklin Institute has been a responsible caretaker of the Bergdoll airplane, restoring it three times but it has failed for decades to thoroughly and prominently portray the Bergdoll provenance. As a result of its new admission that it does not have a written acquisition document, museum ethics experts say The Franklin Institute should open a dialogue with the Bergdoll family and reach an agreement to continue its quality stewardship of the Bergdoll airplane. Explain to the public that the museum’s method of acquisition was not what they’ve presented for 90 years, and the remarkable airplane’s true provenance is with the Bergdolls, not a museum volunteer who obtained it under questionable ethical and legal circumstances.