Nikola Tesla is on his way to Ipswich. It’s appropriate that Tesla makes a stop in northeastern Massachusetts as he once was a business colleague of John Hays Hammond, Jr., owner and builder of the famous Hammond Castle in Gloucester. More on that later.
Tesla (with a little help from yours truly) will be at the Ipswich Museum for a noontime brown bag lecture on Monday, July 7th. Check out the Museum website for directions and other information. I hope you’ll join us there. The plan is to keep the presentation light and lively. Stories highlighting Tesla’s rather interesting personality quirks, friendship with Mark Twain, and contributions to the spectacular Niagara Falls will be the focus. No dry technical stuff in this talk, so come on down for an hour of one of the most interesting men of the last century.
The Ipswich Museum is a beautiful location for the event. Built in 1795, the Heard House is an interesting mix of colonial architecture and furnishings with Asian art stemming from Augustine Heard’s forays into the China trade of the early 19th Century. Sitting across the street is the Whipple House, also part of the Museum, built in 1677. Spend the morning visiting the two houses, then join me for Tesla.
For those who are familiar with the area, the Hammond Castle is only about a half hour away. John Hays Hammond (the Senior) financed some of Nikola Tesla’s early inventions. In a manner of speaking, he collected inventors, inviting not only Tesla but Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and many other scientists of the day over for tea (or perhaps it was brandy). At one of these events his young son, John Hays Hammond, Jr., first met Tesla and was enthralled by Tesla’s invention of robotics back in the late 1890s. Eventually, Junior (whom we mostly know as Jack) would form a company with Tesla and begin his own career of invention. I’ll talk more about the Hammond/Tesla connection on July 7th.
If you’re in Ipswich (or can get there) on July 7th, please join me noontime at the Ipswich Museum. I’ll talk about Tesla and Hammond and Niagara Falls and pigeons (yes, pigeons), show some cool pictures, and hopefully be entertaining enough to get you out of the heat for an hour. I’ll have copies of my book Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity for sale and will tell you how to download my soon-to-be-released e-book Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time – for free!
Please spread the word and plan to join Tesla and I in Ipswich on the 7th!
David J. Kent is an avid traveler and the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity. You can order a signed copy directly from me, download the ebook at barnesandnoble.com, and find hard copies at Barnes and Noble bookstores, as well as online at B&N.com and Amazon.com.
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