Albert Redmond

Albert Deweese Redman (February 22, 1851 - March 31, 1922) was an American police constable in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania who claimed in 1901 to have constructed and sought patent for a water wheel-type perpetual motion machine, reportedly receiving support from Daniel Drawbaugh, who had famously made claims to have invented a telephone prior to Bell's 1876 patent.

Press Coverage

• "PERPETUAL MOTION - Constable Redmond, of the Fourth Ward, the Most Recent Claimant to the Discovery.", Harrisburg Daily Independent (Harrisburg, Pa.): 1, 21 June 1901, https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/82913789/ 
  

  Constable Albert Redmond, of the Fourth ward, this city, has made application for his patent for a perpetual motion machine. The invention is not recorded in that name, but is under another guise, as the patent office at Washington has persistently refused for some time to grant papers for perpetual motion ideas.

  Mr. Redmond has spent the best part of five years and a sum of two thousand dollars in perfecting his device, which he thinks will be accorded public recognition.

  The invention is on the principle of the water wheel, only Mr. Redmond uses large sized shot as material for the wheel in causing the revolutions.

  Several weeks ago, Mr. Redmond took Professor Drawbaugh, the telephone inventor of Eberly's Mills, into his confidence and showed the distinguished inventor the workings of his model. Professor Drawbaugh, says Mr. Redmond, was enthusiastic over the model and predicted a great future for the invention. The papers have not been issued by the patent office to Mr. Redmond and the invention is kept in security.

  In making the tests Mr. Redmond used water as a carrier to move the wheel, but the water would evaporate and to replenish it would be quite expensive, so he has substituted shot, which have proved very successful.