The original scan for this article comes from Thomas M. Tryniski's fultonhistory.com.
Philadelphia Inquirer, February 9, 1902, Sunday Magazine, page 2.
DANIEL DRAWBAUGH, of Harrisburg, Pa., the man who has long been numbered among the celebrated inventors of the age, inventors of the age, and who claims that his invention of the telephone was prior to Bell's, has just perfected a marvelous wireless signal system which he asserts can be applied to telephony as well as telegraphy.
Mr. Drawbaugh's theory is comprehended in the use of the electric currents of the earth instead of the ether currents with which wireless telegraph experiments have hitherto been made. His proposition differs from that of Marconi. By means of his instruments Mr. Drawbaugh says that he has been able to successfully signal a distance of over half a mile without the use of wires, to his shop as one station and the farm of Abraham Hertzler as the other. Experiments so far, he says, have shown that distance increases the efficiency of his system, the sounds being more distinct at half a mile than at a distance of a dozen feet.
Mr. Drawbaugh has constructed a machine capable of producing a high number of electrical vibrations to the minute and this machine plays a very important part in the system of wireless signalling which he has invented. So far the only other apparatus used are the ordinary sending and receiving instruments used in telegraphing and telephoning.
Attached to the sending apparatus is a wire which is grounded, and the receiving station consists merely of a similar grounded wire, connected with the receiving instrument. Many of his experiments have been performed from a small boat, which is sent down the creek and runs by the work shop to a distance of half a mile. The results obtained under these conditions are asserted to have been most satisfactory, and Mr. Drawbaugh firmly believes that communication with ships at sea is perfectly feasible with his system.
Mr. Drawbaugh's workshop is located in Eberly's Mills, Cumberland county, Pa., on the banks of the Yellow Breeches Creek. Those who are fortunate enough to be allowed the privilege of visiting Mr. Drawbaugh's shop find upon entering, a room filled with machinery of almost every description. Wheels revolving overhead belt, pulleys and electric wires everywhere, cause the visitor to pause fearful lest he become entangled in this labyrinth of motion. In the further end of the room at almost any time of the day may be seen the inventor busily engaged in operating some intricate machinery, usually assisted by his grandson, a young man of nineteen years of age, who is ever willing to do, and capable of doing, any work which his grandfather may assign to him.
The visitor will see outside of the shop at various places numerous iron stakes, some one hundred yards from the shop, others further away, some probably a mile. These might appear to the casual observer to be merely hitching posts, but they are really a part of this remarkable system. Attached to these stakes are wires, some connected with plates buried in the ground, and again others are connected with other stakes a few yards distant. To these stakes and wires Mr. Drawbaugh fastens his machine, and with positively no connection by wire or any other means, talks and telegraphs distinctly to and from his shop. He has experimented at various distances, and at no time has his system refused to do the work. In fact, the work, whether telegraphing or telephoning, becomes more distinct the further apart the terminals of the line are located.
In the course of a recent conversation with Mr. Drawbaugh he said that in 1882 he completed a system of wireless signaling which was identically the same as the one now being experimented with by other inventors, but which he abandoned, claiming that it was not reliable in every instance or to any great extent. He has, however, kept the matter in mind, only giving it attention at occasional times, and he only been working vigorously on his present successful system for about two years.
When the inventor was recently visited at his shop he was found busily engaged in making a drawing. which he explained was of his wireless system. Without finishing his work he at once engaged in conversation on various subjects, but it was not long until the conversation drifted to the one theme on which his mind is almost wholly taken up--his new invention. With the vigor of a young man forty years his junior he carried a stand on which he had placed the various instruments used in the operation of his system, out of the shop and proceeded to talk and telegraph to and from his shop to various points. From a point in the Yellow Breeches Creek his system worked admirably. He then operated his system from the house of Mr. Samuel Hertzler, who resides about one mile from the shop. In every instance the work was entirely satisfactory.
Mr. Drawbaugh is experimenting every day, and announcements of remarkable results may be expected at any time.
Daniel Drawbaugh, the inventor of this marvelous system, was born at Eberly's Mills, about four miles from Harrisburg, Pa., where he now resides, and has lived there all his life with the exception of three years. He was seventy-four years old on the 14th of last July. He is well known to the scientific world as an inventor of great genius.