John Worrell Keely

John Worrell Keely
John Worrell Keely
Born	3 September 1837; Chester, Delaware Co., Pennsylvania
Died	18 November 1898 (61); Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Affiliations	Keely Motor Company; Keely Manufacturing Company of Pennsylvania
	Influenced Clara Jessup Moore; W. J. Colville; Joseph Repetti

John Ernest Worrell Keely (September 3, 1837 - November 18, 1898) was an American mechanic and inventor who claimed to have discovered means of exploiting an etheric force to convert minute quantities of air and water into motive force, as a form of virtual perpetual motion, which he claimed to demonstrate using machines he constructed that were variously called vibratory-generators and hydro-pneumatic-pulsating-vacuo-engines. Keely was also, late in his life, linked to claims regarding an anti-gravity force called apergy, which certain of his defenders as well as sensationalist press accounts related he had discovered.

Selected Bibliography

Keely, John Worrell (1891), "Latent Force", Lippincott's Monthly Magazine (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co.) 47: 639-644, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b5213367&view=1up&seq=663
Keely, John W. (1895), "The Operation of the Vibratory Circuit. (By Polar and Depolar Sympathetic Interchange, as Associated with the Transmitter.)", The New Science Review (New York & London: Transatlantic Pub. Co.) 1 (4): 457-465, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015031091559&view=1up&seq=471

Selected Patents

US118022A. "Improvement in Fly-Wheels." 15 Aug. 1871.

Press Coverage

1870-1900

Sci. Am. (2 May 1874), "ANOTHER NEW MOTOR.", Scientific American (New York: Munn & Co.): 273, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015024538350&view=1up&seq=265
Sci. Am. (26 June 1875), "THE KEELY MOTOR DECEPTION.", Scientific American (New York: Munn & Co.): 400-401, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015024538376&view=1up&seq=402
Anon. (11 Dec. 1898), "WAS KEELY A GREAT INVENTOR OR GREAT IMPOSTER? Mystery Still Shrouds the Inventions of the Late John W. Keely, Though Stockholders Now Claim to Possess All His Records", San Francisco Call (San Francisco, CA): 21, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85066387/1898-12-11/ed-1/seq-21/, "John W. Keely, who died in Philadelphia recently, stirred the scientific world some twenty-five years ago with a proposition to revolutionize mechanics by the use of a force called etheric vapor. He announced that he had an engine which went of its own accord. He called it then a 'hydro-pneumatic-pulsating-vacuo engine.' He had a different name for it every year, and he made about three thousand different engines of the same kind. Engineers, scientific men and capitalists made frequent pilgrimages to Keely's Philadelphia laboratory to see the 'Keely motor mote.' Sometimes it 'moted' and sometimes it did not, but Keely always had a great tale to tell. He was always going to startle the world, but never did. Some prominent New Yorkers took Keely seriously enough to raise $100,000 and form a company to put his motor on the market. Keely spent $10,000 of this paying his debts and $60,000 building a worthless 'motor.' In 1888 he was committed to jail for contempt of court for refusing to explain to a committee of experts the working of his machine. Keely Motor stock, when last sold on the market, March 9, 1879, was quoted at 4½."
Hearst Co. (29 Jan. 1899), "The Secret of the Keely Motor", Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL): 42, 43, https://www.newspapers.com/image/349875156 — a double-page exposé from the Hearst papers, including statements by Charles S. Hill and J. J. Smith, references to the studies of T. B. Kinraide
Moritzen, Julius (April 1899), "The Extraordinary Story of John Worrell Keely", The Cosmopolitan (Rochester, NY: Schlict & Field): 633-640, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hnychx&view=1up&seq=1003

Later

Roscoe, Theodore (28 May 1944), "The Case of the Pious Humbug", Detroit Evening News (Detroit, MI): 22, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88063294/1944-05-28/ed-1/seq-72/

Reading

Moore, Clara Jessup (1893), Keely And His Discoveries: Aerial Navigation, London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t4xg9h57b

Notes

↑ Colville and Keely were friends, and Colville made reference to Keely's hypotheses in his own writings, including in his 1894 book Dashed Against the Rock, a Romance of the Coming Age (Boston: Colby & Rich). Colville was one of eulogists at Keely's funeral on 23 November 1898.

[1] Colville and Keely were friends, and Colville made reference to Keely's hypotheses in his own writings, including in his 1894 book Dashed Against the Rock, a Romance of the Coming Age (Boston: Colby & Rich). Colville was one of eulogists at Keely's funeral on 23 November 1898.

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