“Dr. Charles Grafton Page, another native of Salem, invented the first electric motor in which solenoids were used, and as early as 1850 constructed a motor which developed over 10 h.p. The next year he made a trial trip with his electro-magnetic locomotive over the Baltimore and Washington Railroad. Prof. Moses Gerrish Farmer lived in Pearl Street between the years 1850 and 1870, and, as far back as 1859, illuminated the house with divided electric lights—probably the first time that any house in the world was lighted by electricity. In 1847 Prof. Farmer had constructed and exhibited in public an electro-magnetic locomotive drawing a car holding two passengers, on a track one foot and a half wide.
“Many of Prof. Alexander Graham Bell’s early experiments were conducted in Salem, and the first lecture on the telephone in this country, if not in the world, was delivered by him before the Essex Institute in Lyceum Hall, February 12, 1877. The late Prof. Osbun, teacher of chemistry and physics at the Normal School in Salem, was also an electrical expert. He exhibited the first arc lights in Salem, and was the inventor of the storage battery system from which lights were exhibited.”
The advertisement of March 7, 1765, previously alluded to herein at Kinnersley, A.D. 1761, is as follows:
“A Course of Experiments on the
newly discovered Electrical Fire, to be accompanied with methodical Lectures on the Nature and Properties of that wonderful Element will be exhibited by David Mason, at his House opposite Mr. Thomas Jackson; Distiller, near Sudbury-Street.—To consist of two Lectures, at one Pistareen each Lecture.—The first Lectures to be on Monday and Thursday, and the Second on Tuesday and Friday Evenings every week, Weather permitting.
“Of Electricity in General
“That the Electric Fire is a real Element,—That our Bodies at all Times contain enough of it to set an House on Fire,—That this Fire will live in Water,—A Representation of the seven Planets, shewing a probable Cause of their keeping their due Distances from each other, and the Sun in the Centre,—The Salute repulsed by the Ladies’ Fire, or Fire darting from a Lady’s Lips, so that she may defy any Person to salute her,—A Battery of Eleven Guns discharged by the Electric Spark, after it has passed through eight Feet of Water,—Several Experiments shewing that the Electric Fire and Lightning are the same, and that Points will draw off the Fire so as to prevent the Stroke,—With a number of other entertaining Experiments, too many to be inserted in an Advertisement.
“Tickets to be had either at his House above or at his Shop in Queen-Street.”
Another advertisement, which appeared in the Salem Gazette of Tuesday, January 1, 1771, is thus worded: “To-morrow evening (if the Air be dry) will be exhibited A Course of Experiments in that instructive and entertaining branch of Natural Philosophy called Electricity; to be accompanied with Methodical Lectures on the nature and properties of the wonderful element; by David Mason, at his dwelling-house near the North-Bridge. The course to consist of two lectures, at a pistareen each lecture.”
A.D. 1771.—Milly (Nicolas Christiern de Thy, Comte de) French chemist, constructs compass needles of an alloy of gold and ferruginous sand. These needles answered well their purpose, as did also the brass needle owned by Christian Huyghens (alluded to at A.D. 1706), a fact which received the confirmation of Messrs. Du Lacque, Le Chevalier d’Angos and M. Arderon, while the latter further ascertained that he could impart a feeble though distinct magnetic force to a brass bar either by striking it or by means of the “double touch.”