W. J. Gladish

William James Gladish (June 30, 1838 - January 26, 1919) was an American machinist, resident at Chattanooga, Hamilton Co., Tennessee, who devised what he called the Gladish Wheel, an alleged perpetual motion machine, which was displayed at the Tennessee Centennial Exposition of 1897 by R. J. Esby. Gladish credited the genesis of his invention to his father William Jones Gladish (1801-1886), who he said came up with the concept eighty years earlier and had worked diligently on the project during his lifetime, eventually initiating his son into the work before his passing.