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William J. Tate, the first postmaster of Kitty Hawk, N.C., was very much involved in helping with the first powered flight by brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright there in 1903.
After receiving a letter penned by the Wright brothers as they searched for an adequate location to test their gliders, Tate replied with such a vivid description of the surrounding hills, including numerous sketches, the Wrights chose Kitty Hawk to test their equipment.
Tate and his wife Addie helped the Wright brothers construct their glider, with Addie even sewing some of the canvas on the aircraft's wings. Along with William's cousin and his co-workers at the Kill Devil Hills Life-Saving Station, the Tates assisted with the attempted glider flights until Orville Wright succeeded in the first flight on Dec. 17, 1903.
In 1915, William Tate was appointed keeper of the North Landing River Lighthouse in Coinjock, N.C. To aid in the safe navigation of ships transiting the area, he was responsible for keeping lit a string of 42 lights stretching over 65 miles of waterway.
1915 also marked the year that the U.S. Coast Guard was formed with the merge of the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service and U.S. Life-Saving Service. Joining the service in 1939 was the U.S. Lighthouse Service.
The Coast Guard named its fleet of 175-foot coastal buoy tenders, known as the Keeper Class, in honor of Tate and other significant lighthouse keepers.
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