Keely, the Monumental Fraud of the Century!
by Ord Hume
Of all the perpetual motion frauds the story of John W. Keely's carefully planned deception and the manner in which the Keely Motor Company defrauded people of large sums of money must rank supreme. As a perpetual motionist, it is difficult to imagine that he ever set out with honorable intent. That he made a good living out of his 'inventions' there is no doubt. There is also no doubt that there were many who regretted that he died before the fraud could be exposed. Had this happened in his lifetime, at the very least Keely would have received a lengthy session behind bars; at the very worst, he might have been lynched.
John Worrell Keely was born in Philadelphia on 3 September 1837. He worked as a carpenter until 1872 when, he later related, a tuning-fork gave him the first hint of a new motive power which he claimed to have discovered. His claims were first brought to public notice in 1873 and while they were derided by the few as being absurd, they were popularly believed to have some foundation. This belief was strengthened by the fact that several well known scientific gentlemen who saw some of Keely's experiments during the winter of 1873-4 were unable to discover any fraud. They were, however, prevented from examining the apparatus. During the year which followed, exhibitions were made before capitalists in Philadelphia, New York and Boston, and demonstrations were made of a powerful force which Keely persuaded them was produced by the 'disintegration' of a few drops of water.
Such exhibitions of power lost nothing of their marvellousness in the retelling and before very long imaginative newspaper reporters were whipping up enthusiasm over Keely's discovery in the pages of the popular press. So earnest, sincere and enthusiastic were these reports that many people began to doubt whether the physical laws of nature had been correctly stated in the textbooks of the time.
Keely had inspired such confidence in his claims that within a few months he was able to form the Keely Motor Company with a capital of $5,000,000. One of the most plausible arguments used in floating the company stock was that if Keely established his claims by bringing out a commercial engine using his principles, all present sources of power would be superseded by the 'etheric force' evolved from a thimbleful of water, in which case a single share of the stock would be worth a fortune to its possessor. This was a powerful incentive indeed for the potential investor.
Unlike most great inventors, John Keely had no education. He was first known as an inventor by his exhibition of a perpetual motion apparatus at premises in Philadelphia's Market Street. This was several years before the advent of his motor. As regards appearance and physique, he was a powerfully built man around six feet tall, broad shouldered, square-jawed, muscular and fond of exhibiting his great strength. He spoke very rapidly, and when explaining his experiments, obtained the confidence of the listener by an apparent freedom from anything like subterfuge. He inspired respect as an honest man who concealed no facts, although his use of language is on record as being strange. He was fond of using words out of their accepted normal meaning so that an investigator would learn nothing from any explanation of his relating to the character of his force or the means of controlling it. Pseudo-technical language impressed those who heard him tell of his 'hydro-pneumatic-pulsating-vacu-engine', 'sympathetic equilibrium' and 'etheric disintegration', even 'quadruple negative harmonics' and 'atomic triplets'.
The story of the Keely motor can be divided into two clear periods which help to provide us with some sort of understanding of the character of the claims made by Keely and the experiments by which he supported them. The first period covers his claims to the production of force by the disintegration of water. He allegedly accomplished this by the use of an apparatus which he called the 'Liberator'. Those who bought shares in the Keely Motor Company had the satisfaction of seeing a picture of this on their stock certificates.
The second period began about 1886-7 when he claimed a new discovery of a force derived from the vibration of some hitherto unknown fluid between the atoms of the illimitable ether. This second claim was brought out after the Keely Motor Company, discouraged by Keely's failure after many years to bring out any practical commercial motor, had ceased to supply him with funds for his experiments or his support.
During the first period, there was wild speculation in the stock of the company, due largely to the almost hysterical reports in many of the newspapers of what had been achieved (?) by Keely, and more especially to the fact that eminent men of scientific ability, albeit in fields other than physics, had not only endorsed Keely's claims but had also become shareholders. It is not strange, therefore, that there were many thousand stockholders in Philadelphia and other cities. Their numbers included many who could ill afford unwise speculation, such as clerks, shop-girls, widows and orphans-all people looking for the day when the increased value of their shares would make them independent.
The tide of speculative investment was checked when a few conservative newspapers, including in The Ledger Philadelphia, pointed out the absurdity of Keely's claims, and published the opinions of well-known physicists as to the belief that Keely was a fraud. Among these were Dr. Cresson and Dr. Barker whose investigations were incomplete owing to Keely's insistence that he would not have his inventions pried into by those who did not and could not understand them.
What became of the money which came to Keely as his share of the great sums raised by the sale of the stock is open to conjecture. Apparently he lived in good style, was free in the use of money, gave to charitable enterprises purchased some diamonds 'as an investment', as he told a friend, and generally behaved as a citizen of substance in the community which was supporting him. However, the withdrawal of financial aid by the Keely Motor Company had apparently left him without resources. The public seemed to have paid scant credit to the inventor and now treated him with indifference. This was the impression gleaned from a newspaper paragraph about him read by a wealthy widow.
This was in 1881-2, and the future benefactor of Keely was the widow of Bloomfield H. Moore who had made a fortune amounting to $5,500,000 in paper manufacture. He had died in Philadelphia on 5 July 1878.
The newspaper paragraph related that the inventor, still struggling to perfect his apparatus, was on thc verge of starvation and despair. Mrs. Clara J. Bloomfield Moore later said that she read this news following another story about a New York inventor who had been unsuccessful in getting anybody interested in his invention which, after his death, was seen to be of great value. The benevolent Mrs. Moore's heart went out to Keely for she thought that here was an opportunity to save another inventor from a similar fate. She tracked down Keely, visited him-and so began a fresh flow of cash into the Keely coffers...
Within a year or so of this rehabilitation of his fortunes, Keely announced the discovery of his vibratory force. Meanwhile, Mrs. Moore had become a convert to his theories and through her able pen and her many influential contacts, not only in the United States but in Europe as well, she gave wide circulation to these theories. This revived the hopes of the Keely Motor Company shareholders. Keely, however, had other ideas. The company might press for some reimbursement from him (meaning Mrs. Moore) and he did not choose to do anything to upset the Golden Goose. Keely told the company that it had no claims to his new discoveries made since the company disowned him. One share holder put the case to the test and took Keely to law to compel him to show wherein the two discoveries differed from each other. The court ruled that Keely should explain the difference, and when he refused to divulge the secret he was sent to prison for contempt of court. A compromise solution was found by Keely agreeing to permit a mechanical expert to examine the apparatus and make a report. The expert did his best, and found that what ever Keely believed that he had invented latterly, it was different from whatever he thought he had invented earlier. The court was satisfied, and Keely was released from jail.
Mrs. Moore, who had unshakable faith in Keely's integrity, invited the leading physicists of the United States and Europe to examine and report upon Keely's discovery. The few who accepted the invitation were not allowed by Keely to handle the equipment, or to do more than remain spectators of his experiments and demonstrations. Some came away puzzled by what they saw; others formed theories of how well-known forces of nature would account for the results produced. However, nothing they could say or publish could shake the faith of either Mrs. Moore or Keely's followers.
Mrs. Moore was of English birth and always retained her preference for London over Philadelphia. After an absence of several years in England, she returned to the States to sort out some litigation concerning the trusteeship of her late husband's estate. Her championship of Keely's fortunes was an element in the case and she chose to fortify her position by endeavoring to get several eminent physicists to examine Keely's inventions, believing that in their apparently advanced state of perfection the experts must make favorable reports. These gentlemen, among whom were Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, all declined the opportunity for various reasons. Time, for all the parties concerned, was running out. Mrs. Moore, still believing Keely to be sincere, wanted her protégé to serve as support for her court case. Her very endeavors to secure this marked the beginning of the end for the whole enterprise and, sadly, for the leading characters in the story.
In November 1895 Mrs. Moore invited the president of the Spring Garden Institute, Addison B. Burke, to make an investigation. Burk asked if he could bring along an electrical engineer named E. Alexander Scott. The request was acceded to, and in fact Scott took charge of the investigation. This seemed natural since Scott was familiar with the history of the Keely movement and had talked with the inventor about it back in 1874. He was also familiar with the views of some United States government engineers before whom Keely had performed some experiments at Fort Lafayette.
Scott's first visit to Keely's workshop at 1422 N. Twentieth Street, was made with Mrs. Moore on 9 November 1895. The afternoon was spent with Keely. On this and subsequent visits he gave Keely no impression that he did not accept the inventor's statements as fact, since any question which might suggest doubt would certainly have prevented him from seeing other experiments by which he might confirm his belief that Keely really was a trickster. His patience was rewarded and many things were shown to him including some of which he had heard tell several years earlier. Among these was a levitation experiment, by which heavy weights were made to rise and fall in water in response to musical sounds produced at certain pitches. This experiment had been shown to admiring investors and investigators from the earliest days of the Keely mythology, and had always proved very effective. Scott left the building that afternoon satisfied that the experiments he had seen did not depend on any hitherto unknown source.
On the second and third visits, Scott was accompanied by Burk. Both men afterwards analyzed what they had seen and concluded that compressed air was used in nearly all the experiments either as the moving force or as auxiliary to some other force more powerful but hidden from view. As an instance of this, the rise and fall of the weights in a jar of water, closed at the top, was found to be the rise and fall of hollow globes and discs, delicately balanced, so that an increase or decrease of pressure in the enclosed air space above the water would make them sink or rise to the surface. The necessary variation in pressure was produced by the introduction or extraction of air into this space through a small tube which Keely assured them was a solid wire. During one visit, Scott picked up the end of the wire when Keely wasn't looking, and found that it was hollow. The tube was a common feature in nearly every piece of apparatus in the laboratory. Other apparatus which had so excited the admiration of many prior investigators was likewise found to operate on accepted and perfectly normal principles. Keely, the two men now confirmed, had discovered no new force-only how to delude people. They reported this to Mrs. Moore, who as one might expect was somewhat surprised.
In February 1896 Mrs. Moore sent for Professor W. Lascelles Scott, an English physicist. Her reason for this was that Keely was aging, and she still felt that he had invented something important and wanted Keely to impart the knowledge to the learned Englishman in case he should die before completing his commercial engine. The Professor was allowed to examine whatever he wanted and to have full instructions as to its use from Keely. After a month of investigation, the worthy Professor stated before a meeting at the Franklin Institute that 'Keely has demonstrated to me, in a way which is absolutely unquestionable, the existence of a force hitherto unknown.' Bold words indeed!
Mrs. Moore was elated and soon afterwards arranged for the disbelieving E. A. Scott to witness experiments at the laboratory devised by Professor Lascelles-Scott to show that the former verdict was in error. This was duly done and the two men and Mrs. Moore then agreed it would only be right and proper for Keely to repeat the experiment; but this time Mrs. Moore would prove whether or not the hollow wire really was a vital tube by cutting it while the experiment was in progress. Mrs. Moore agreed that this would be the real test, and so on Sunday, 3 May 1896, the Professor went along to see Keely to tell him what had been decided. What happened at this interview he duly recorded in a letter to Mrs. Moore. 'To my surprise', he wrote, 'he declined point-blank to repeat the demonstration of Saturday, just as I was told he would do [by E. A. Scott].' The Professor urged Mrs. Moore 'the absolute necessity of winning Mr. Scott's opinion at once, in Keely's own best interests as in yours'. He also said: 'It would be rashness to discuss the subject further at the Franklin Institute.' Without calling on Mrs. Moore, he promptly returned to England. Mrs. Moore immediately withdrew her financial support from Keely. This was 4 May 1896.
Keely still protested the validity of his devices but, it was later revealed, Mrs. Moore lost faith in him and for the next few years all she gave him was an allowance of $250 a month.
On 18 November 1898 Keely died, taking with him to the grave many of his pseudo-mechanical secrets. But he was not to be spared the final exposure, for the Keely Motor Company immediately took possession of Keely's laboratory. With the aid of a Boston electrician named T. Burton Kinraide, who had been in touch with Keely at various times, the laboratory was dismantled and the engine removed to Kinraide's home at Jamaica Plains. It was here that he apparently spent some time trying to get the thing going.
Meanwhile back in the Keely house, E. A. Scott and Burk began an investigation of the house itself. The Keely Motor Company had concentrated on the removal of the motor and had not bothered with the rest of the equipment. On 20 December 1898 Kinraide discovered his first evidence of fraud. Now Keely's widow, hitherto very much in the background, was in the middle of legal threats from the Keely Motor Company, and her counsel, Charles J. Hill, revealed to the world on 29 January 1899 the whole truth about Keely and his mammoth fraud, none of which it seemed the trusting widow Keely knew anything about.
The news broke in Philadelphia with justified clamor. The papers carried banner headlines 'The Keely Motor Secret is Out'. The New York journal for 29 January ran a banner 'Keely, the Monumental Fraud of the Century!' And a close friend in Philadelphia revealed that, when one day he said to the aging Keely, 'John, what do you want for an epitaph? 'Keely had replied 'Keely, the greatest humbug of the nineteenth century.'
Strange to say, some of the directors of the Keely Motor Company still had faith in the enterprise and struggled to resurrect the business for a while. Meanwhile, Kinraide went on record as believing the Keely machinery to warrant classification among the greatest frauds of the century.
As for Mrs. Moore, her health had been failing and she returned to her London home before Keely's death. News of his demise was brought to her by her grandson who was Count Eugene von Rosen, attaché to the legation of the King of Sweden and Norway at the Court of St Jame's in London. He said that when he told his grandmother the news, she was unmoved. 'I hope', she said, 'that he imparted the secret to someone before he died.' On 5 January 1899 she too died. It was said that her life had been shortened by the final years of the Keely fiasco. She left more than $1 million excluding real estate.
What about Keely's 'strange forces? Well, his devices, many of which were linked to musical instruments such as an autoharp, a mouth organ and tuning-forks, were claimed to be set in motion by the amplification of the interference set up between different sound waves. His motor, on one quart of water, would (Keely claimed) run a train from Philadelphia right across the continent to San Francisco, and a ship could sail from New York to San Francisco on just a gallon of the same common liquid. Terms like 'molecular vibration', 'oscillation of the atom' and countless others were all part of the humbug.
The examination showed that Keely's use of wires or thin 'rods' to convey amplitude was the key to everything. The importance of these seemingly solid rods he never quite explained, but during demonstrations he would apparently show the solidarity of them by filing one. In truth, these rods were micro-bore tubes for conveying compressed air. The air reservoir was a cylinder in the cellar and the compressor was a water motor. A series of rubber bulbs concealed under the floor and which yielded to foot pressure worked the whole thing. The illustration of the Keely house, published in the New York Journal, is reproduced here (Fig. 81).
Keely-what can we make of him? A humbug, yes, but undoubtedly a clever one. A self-taught and fairly good engineer certainly. But he was also something of a prophet. He predicted the flying machine, adding that the perfection of his engine would make such a device possible. He invented a pneumatic gun, and built all his own equipment which was no easy feat.
One person who saw it in use said that a pint of water poured into the cylinder resulted in a pressure of 50,000 lb./sq. in. being produced. No small force to be contained, however produced.
Keely did go down in history and his autobiographic epitaph stands correct. Had he not tried to capitalize on his showmanship to such an extent, he might just be remembered as an amusing exhibition of the unusual in the same way that The Invisible Girl or any other of the many trickster shows of London in the last century are recalled now.
Today, Philadelphia has forgotten all about its infamous resident. Even Keely's old house has completely disappeared and the site is now a private parking lot for the property next door.