14123427 wardenclyffe a forfeited dream by leland i anderson

7/29/2019 14123427 Wardenclyffe a Forfeited Dream by Leland I Anderson

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Wardenclyffe A Forfeited Dream

by

Leland I. Anderson

REPRINTED FROMIssues of Aug. and Sept. 1968

LONG ISLAND FORUM

IN MID-JANUARY, 1900, Nikola Tesla returned to New York City after spending eightmonths and $100,000 building an electrical research experimental station at ColoradoSprings. There, in the shadow of Pike's Peak, he produced the greatest point-to-pointelectric discharge ever achieved by mansparks 100 feet in length. He spoke of

attempting to communicate with Mars, and of sending power to ships at sea. Thescientific fraternity, jarred by reports of his receiving "signals" of extra-terrestrial originthose dark cold nights in Colorado snapped, "If Tesla really has something, let himdemonstrate it out in the open for all to witness."

With successful completion of experiments and a rapidly growing list of radio patents,Tesla felt he was riding the crest of a new technology. He envisioned a world radiocenter comprising all the artifices that we now have todayinterconnected radio-telephone networks, synchronized time signals, instantaneous stock reports, pocketreceivers, private communications, press radio serviceor, in his words, a World Systemof intelligence transmission.


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The Tesla laboratory designed by Stanford White as it is today. Located on Route

25A

between Rocky Point and Wading River, it is owned by Peerless Photo Products, Inc.

During the past year Marconi had succeeded in transmitting signals across the EnglishChannel. Tests were being made by experimenters here to signal the results of yachtraces on Long Island Sound. To have significant impact, it was quite obvious to Teslathat a demonstration of his system must be sensational and, moreover, readily understoodby the public to whom he constantly appealed through a sympathetic press. What couldbe more impressive than operating his recently patented radio controlled boat at the ParisExposition from his office in New York?

Tesla asked Robert Underwood Johnson, poet, author, and editor of the noted literarymagazine Century to publish an extensive article on the philosophical aspects of energysources and use. It appeared June, 1900, with amazing photographs taken at theColorado Springs experimental station, hopefully attracting new research anddevelopment capital. When first meeting Tesla in 1894, Johnson was stirred by hisgenius and resolved to aid him in every way possible. He wrote to his good friend atYale, urging an honorary degree for Tesla, and within a few weeks the necessary

arrangements had been completed for ceremonies that academic year.

Anxious to renew the social whirl that he had not enjoyed since leaving for Colorado,Tesla sought out his friends at THE PLAYERS club in Gramercy Park where Johnson hadintroduced him. The club had been remodeled by the eminent architect Stanford Whitewho, with other men of arts and letters, were awed by Tesla's portrayal of futuredevelopments at hand. Known for stagy performances at his laboratory in the evenings,he had quickly become lionized by the "Four Hundred." His table at DELMONICO'S and


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the Waldorf-Astoria Palm Garden where he lived again became a favorite meeting place.

As a free inventor, Tesla's sources of income were royalties from inventions and workingcapital obtained from men of private indulgence who were impressed with Tesla's record

of accomplishment. They were also assured by the ease with which he held his priority inpatent litigation despite the constant attempts to break the monopoly he maintained forthe Westinghouse Company. Tesla therefore went to his friends with a plan readilyappreciated in terms of return-on-investment. The idea was to outperform the AtlanticCable, not only in speed but in capacity with many simultaneous messages.

He talked of his far-reaching plans to John Jacob Astor, Thomas Fortune Ryan, and othermen of means. Spending money he didn't have, he lavished gifts on his friends in suchmanner as sending a special messenger all the way to Newport, Rhode Island, with acabochon sapphire ring, a wedding gift to Henry O. Havemeyer.

But it was late in November when his plan caught the attention of J. P. Morgan. Teslaasked for $100,000 to erect a plant in less than a year's time to transmit messages acrossthe Atlantic. In two weeks he had $150,000 from Morgan, and the enormity of theproject was then full upon him. He must work swiftly to complete the electrical designso that the special equipment could be ordered. Land must be acquired, and an architectengaged.

By March of the following year he went to Pittsburgh and placed a contract with theWestinghouse Electric Company for generators and transformers. As a site for the WorldSystem, Tesla found it in the name of James S. Warden, director of the Suffolk CountyLand Company. It was a remote wooded parcel adjacent to the Jemima Randall and

George Hegeman farms at Shoreham, L. I., 65 miles from Brooklyn. The site was named"Wardenclyffe."

Meanwhile, Tesla engaged agents in Britain to locate a suitable site for a station on thatcoast. The Paris Exposition had come and gone, and with it the chance for a spectacularpublic demonstration of radio control from New York, but surely commercial radiocommunication with Britain would have a greater impact.

Stanford White, who with others had caught the excitement of the grand plan, anxiouslyundertook the design of the principal building. The transmission tower was designed byW. D. Crow, an associate of White. It was contemplated that four or five other buildings

would be constructed and a large number of houses to accommodate the several hundredpeople who would be employed.

In the Summer of 1901 the townspeople of Shoreham believed they were on the brink ofprosperity as they watched the activity of the building crews. Progress was supervisedclosely by Tesla who lodged at the nearby De Witt Bailey home for several days at atime. Within a few months the large brick building had taken form and foundations forthe majestic octagonal tower begun. The tower was being constructed entirely of large


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wood beams assembled on the ground and hoisted into position. It would rise to a heightof 187 feet.

Below the tower a well had been dug 120 feet deep and twelve feet square, lined with

eight inch timbers. A spiral stairway encircled a vertical steel shaft rising to the surface.

By November the steam boilers and engines had arrived and were being installed.Wardenclyffe was only 1 1/2 hours away by fast train and, with his staff directed byGeorge Scherff, legal secretary and personal confidant, Tesla felt he could now spendmore time in the city. The project continued under tight controlLetters or telegramsarrived nearly every day, sometimes as many as three, carrying detailed instructions andaddressed to George Scherff, c/o "The Tesla Works, Wardenclyffe."

Construction detail of Tesla's "wonder tower." Any spar could be taken out and

replaced if necessary.

Owing to a variety of unforeseen causes, exasperating delays in the delivery of electricalequipment were beginning to try Tesla's patience. The year 1901 was drawing to a close

and newspapers suddenly announced that Marconi signalled the letter "S" across theAtlantic from Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland on December 12. This wasaccomplished with devices in no manner approaching the magnitude of operations Teslawas establishing at Wardenclyffe. Why, then, did Tesla require such an effort?

The reason for secrecy is now clear. The Wardenclyffe plant was not to be solely used forthe transmission of signals across the Atlantic, but more ambitiously, the transmission ofelectric power to any point on the globe without wiresa dream that Tesla had been


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constantly working toward for the past ten years. With his tower, he would "wobble" theEarth's static charge. A successful test of his thesis would indeed be the crowningachievement of the age.

In June, 1902, he found it desirable to move his laboratory from the city. The citylaboratory had been a mecca for scientists from all over the world and at the same time arendezvous for inquisitive reporters. Wardenclyffe provided the seclusion and quiet morein keeping with his desire for secrecy about new avenues of investigation. But it was notentirely out of reach, and Tesla gave strict orders to Scherff that no details of the projectwere to be disclosed and no one other than his workers be permitted on the premises.

Early in 1903 the 55-ton, 68-foot spherical rib-cage dome on top of the tower was nearingcompletion. It was eventually intended to enclose the cage with copper plates so that aninsulated metal ball would be formed. From afar, the tower had the appearance of a hugemushroom rising above the trees along the North Shore. It could easily be seen from

New Haven across the Sound.

George Scherff cautioned Tesla that funds were getting dangerously low, and thatcreditors would soon be pressing him on outstanding accounts. Substantially moreinvestments would be needed to complete the project. Tesla wrote to Morgan about thefrustrating delays he had suffered during the course of the project saying in part,

April 8, 1903

". . . you have raised great waves in the industrial world and some have struck my littleboat. Prices have gone up in consequence twice, perhaps three times higher than they

were. . . ."

Morgan was not agreeable to advancing additional funds.

April 22, 1903

". . . You have extended me a noble help at a time when Edison, Marconi, Pupin,Fleming, and many others openly ridiculed my undertaking and declared its successimpossible. . . ."

No change in Morgan's position. Tesla must now be candid to the point that his true aim

was a mark much higher than that originally presented that is, the wireless transmissionof power .

July 3, 1903

". . . If I would have told you such as this before, you would have fired me out of youroffice. . . . Will you help me or let my great workalmost completego to pots? . . ."


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The answer

July 14, 1903

N. Tesla, Esq."I have received your letter . . . and in reply would say that I should not feel disposed atpresent to make any further advances."

J. P. Morgan

With such a reply from Morgan he left for the solace of his laboratory to conductpreliminary tests. That night, and for several succeeding nights, the residents ofShoreham were astonished to see lightning-like flashes emanating from the tower. Attimes the air was filled with blinding streaks which seemed to shoot off into the darknesson some mysterious errand. When questioned about them the following day, neither

Tesla nor his workers would give any explanation.

THE FALL of 1903 saw the onset of the "Rich Man's Panic," an aggravation whichcompounded Tesla's problem of securing investment capital. Although successful inobtaining help from Thomas Fortune Ryan, who agreed to provide supplementalinvestment funds, these were used to pay an existing mountain of debts, with no excessfor completion of the World System project. Tesla exclaimed, "My enemies have been sosuccessful in representing me as a poet and visionary, that it is absolutely imperative forme to put out something commercial without delay." So, to obtain other neededinvestments, he issued two brochuresThe World System, and another handsomemanifesto prepared on vellum which announced his intention of entering into the field of

consulting engineership. He wrote to George Scherff, " I swear! If I ever get out of thishole nobody will catch me without cash."


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Tesla's "wonder tower," the first transmission tower in the world, was located

less than two miles from the RCA high power radio tower at Rocky Point.

Most damaging of all, a whispering campaign had begun. "If Tesla's plan is such a goodthing, why does not Morgan see it through? He is the very last man to let a good thing

go." There just did not seem to be enough sources of ready cash to keep his Wardenclyffeproject going together with his other researches. Meeting his fixed obligations was adilemma.

On May 4, 1905, the fundamental patents on alternating current motors and electricpower transmission which he had sold to the Westinghouse Company expired. This wasthe end of royalty payments from a source branded as the "Patent Pool Trust" and likenedto the telephone patents. He suddenly did not even have enough money to buy a carloadof coal to fire up the boilers in the laboratory. He wrote to Scherff, "The troubles anddangers are at their height. Coal problem still awaits solution. The Wardenclyffespecters are hounding me day and night. . . . When will it end?"

Notice was then received by Tesla from Colorado Springs that a suit had been institutedagainst him for non-payment of electricity furnished to his experimental station in 1899.Earlier, the city had sent a bill for water furnished the station. In his novel reply he saidthat inasmuch as he had graced that city with his presence and had erected anexperimental station there, he believed that the city should donate all the water used! Thepower company was not so kindly disposed of its services and Tesla ordered that thestation should be sold for value of lumber. At the same time another notice was received


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that the caretaker at his laboratory there was bringing suit for unpaid balance of wagesdue. In September, Tesla appeared in Colorado Springs County Court with his attorney toanswer the suit. Inexorably, judgment was awarded in behalf of the plaintiff forapproximately $1000, satisfied in-part by a Sheriff's sale of his laboratory fixtures and by

$30 payments dragging over the next half-dozen years for the balance.

Although Tesla was beginning to secure money from various sources as speculation oninventions, for the most part it was applied to long standing obligations. Loans weresecured for current efforts concentrated in two areas. First, to get something commercialon the market to shore up his reputation. He set up a small assembly operation at hisWardenclyffe laboratory to make small Tesla coils for which there was a demand bymedical offices, research laboratories, and radio experimenters. Next, a new inventionwhich appeared to be a beautiful solution to many mechanical problemsa turbine ofideal simplicity, reversible, and capable of developing enormous torque. In speaking of ithe stated, "I am looking for a revolution in mechanics from the application of this

principle." The turbine was never developed commercially because, like so many ofTesla's inventions, it was years ahead of its time. A revival of interest has occurred inrecent years as a result of the development of superior metals.

June 25, 1906, the papers were full of the death of Wardenclyffe designer Stanford Whitemurdered on the roof of Madison Square Garden by Harry K. Thaw, a Pittsburghfinancier. White was shot three times in clear view of New York's prominent socialites,the victim of a fictionalized triangle involving Thaw's wife, Evelyn Nesbit. Thaw wascommitted to Matteawan Hospital for the Criminally Insane the following year. NewYork today abounds with magnificent edifices to his memory including the Astormansion at Rhinebeck, the Hall of Fame at New York University, Madison Square

Presbyterian Church, and the Garden City Hotel.

In the Fall it became painfully disappointing to Tesla that it would be necessary forGeorge Scherff to find other means of employment. Scherff was more important in thesuccesses that Tesla achieved than has been realized by biographers. His steadfastness toTesla is in retrospect a shining medal. After Scherff did find other employment hecontinued, whenever possible, to help Tesla keep his financial affairs in order. He did thisevenings and weekends until just prior to Tesla's death. Thousands of dollars of Scherff'sown money went into various Tesla enterprises that did not succeed, but Scherff alwaysmost enthusiastically looked to the day, just ahead, when Tesla's ship would come in.Certainly, without someone as Scherff to maintain Tesla's legal records and accounts afterthe turn of the century, he would have drowned in a stormy financial sea.

Then, as if vanishing in the night, Tesla and his staff departed from Wardenclyffe. EvenThomas R. Bayles, the general passenger agent of the railroad station just across the roadfrom the laboratory, was unaware of the abandonment. Again, Shoreham became a placewhere a passenger alighted only occasionally. Some of the farmers who came toShoreham to send their products to the city looked at Tesla's tower and shook their headssadly. "The breeze at the top is something grand in Summer evening," they said. A fine


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view of ocean steamers could be seen across the flat neck of the island at that point.

Office and experimental area inside Tesla's laboratory. A rare view.

When it became generally known that the Wardenclyffe operation had closed, anoccasional research engineer bitten with curiosity would make his way out to thelaboratory. If the caretaker was still there, the visitor would be admitted for a tour of thelaboratory. What he would behold was something quite beyond his expectations intricate mechanical mechanisms, glass blowing equipment, a complete machine shopincluding eight lathes, X-Ray devices, many varieties of high frequency (Tesla) coils, a

radio controlled boat, exhibit cases with at least a thousand bulbs and tubes, aninstrument room, electrical generators and transformers, wire, cable, library and office. Astrange stillness filled the building. It seemed as if it were a holiday, and the workdaytomorrow would bring back all the workers to their assignments. A walk outside to thetower and up the flights of stairssoon one caught the whisper of the wind through thespars. One believed he could perceive muted voices and clanking sounds below. But theswitch had not been thrown. The dynamos stood idle.

In 1912, Westinghouse, Church, Kerr & Company obtained a judgment against Tesla for$23,500 for machinery furnished at Wardenclyffe. The equipment was subsequentlyremoved. In order to keep a roof over his head, Tesla had given two mortgages on

Wardenclyffe to George C. Boldt, proprietor of the Waldorf-Astoria, to secure payment ofhotel bills amounting to $20,000. Tesla requested that they not be recorded fearing thatall his project's would be destroyed if the matter became public. He was unable to makeany payments at all, and in 1915 he turned the Wardenclyffe deed over to Waldorf-Astoria, Inc., through a silent intermediary.

In noting the passing of the property from Tesla's hands, the Brooklyn Eagle of March 26,1916, commented: "Aside from the scientific interest which attaches itself to the place


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because of its association with the work of Nikola Tesla, a more romantic local interesthas always surrounded the place. It is not too much to say that the place has often beenviewed in the same light as the people of a few centuries ago viewed the dens of thealchemists or the still more ancient wells of the sorcerers. An atmosphere of mystery

hung over the place, an unearthly influence seemed to be radiated from the alembictopped tower, as if drawn down from interstellar space and spread over the countryside toinspire wonder and awe in the minds of the nearby farmers and villagers. . . ."

The Waldorf-Astoria attempted to convert the property to cash in various ways but theimprovement structures, uniquely designed for wireless power transmission, had littleconversion value. The War Department was approached without success in connectionwith the activities at Camp Upton near Yaphank (now the site of Brookhaven NationalLaboratory). An abortive offer was received to establish a pickle factory there. With nopromising offers in two years, a salvage contract was taken by the Smiley Steel Companyof New York to remove the tower. Under the supervision of Wm.|H.|Glancey of

Shoreham, it was set with dynamite on July 4, 1917. One of the crowd that gatheredpoke for most of them" Alas! A dream broken." Bets were placed by others whether itwould be down by nightfall. It was still standing that weekend, and the job took until thenext holidayLabor Day. Only $1750 was realized above demolition costs.

Dr. Nikola Tesla

This Immigrant from Yugoslavia invented a.c. motors and radio. A 1943 Supreme

Court


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decision invalidated Marconi radio patents because of Tesla's prior work.

Tesla was not in New York when the tower finally came down. He had been engaged bya Chicago firm as consulting engineer for a development program of his spiral-flow

turbine. Imagined stories were given exaggerated play in all the New York papers thatthe tower had been destroyed by order of the government to prevent its use by foreignagents. No basis in fact supports these stories and would not have been givenencouragement if the Waldorf-Astoria legal action had been made public. Moreover, anexpert rigger for the salvage firm feared to scale the tower more than half way. The stairshad fallen and many wood members were rotted out.

In 1925 the property was acquired by Walter L. Johnson of Brooklyn. Through theuntiring efforts of Mrs. Sadie E. Robinson, Shoreham booster and agent for Johnson, theproperty was purchased on March 6, 1939, by Plantacres, Inc., and leased to the corporatepredecessor of Peerless Photo Products, Inc. The firm today occupies fifteen acres of the

original tract owned by Tesla for research and production of photosensitive materials.

When the grandiose plan of wireless power transmission was finally out of reach forTesla he wrote: "It is not a dream, it is a simple feat of scientific electrical engineering ,only expensiveblind, faint-hearted, doubting world! Humanity is not yet sufficientlyadvanced to be willingly led by the discoverer's keen searching sense. But who knows?Perhaps it is better in this present world of ours that a revolutionary idea or inventioninstead of being helped and patted, be hampered and ill-treated in its adolescencebywant of means, by selfish interest, pedantry, stupidity and ignorance; that it be attackedand stifled; that it pass through bitter trials and tribulations, through the strife ofcommercial existence. So do we get our light. So all that was great in the past was

ridiculed, condemned, combatted, suppressedonly to emerge all the more powerfully,all the more triumphantly from the struggle."

WARDENCLYFFE

On February 14, 1967, the Brookhaven Town Historical Trust was established to preserveand maintain areas, sites, buildings and objects relating to the history and culture of theTown of Brookhaven. The Trust is administered by a Board of Trustees and is anonprofit, public benefit corporation. It is the first historic trust in the United States to beadministered and operated by a municipality. The resolution to create the Trust wasoffered by Councilman Robert E. Reid. A research committee appointed by Brookhaven

Town Supervisor Charles W. Barraud selected the Tesla laboratory designed by architectStanford White as the first site. The building is currently owned by Peerless PhotoProducts, Inc., and is recognized as an historic site through the interest and cooperation ofits President, Edgar A. Kniffin. It is fitting that the access road to the Peerless plant wasnamed Tesla Street years ago by the Town Board.

Supervisor Barraud has indicated that this is the first of many historical locationsscattered throughout the town that will be surveyed for possible designation as historic


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sites, in the hope that these will be preserved and their important contributions to societyrecognized. For the preparation of this historical review the author acknowledges withspecial thanks assistance received from: David C. Mearns and John C. Broderick,Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Davis Erhardt, Long Island

Division, Queens Borough Public Library, Jamaica, N. Y.; Thomas R. Bayles, MiddleIsland, Long Island, N. Y.

14123427 wardenclyffe a forfeited dream by leland i anderson

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