Archimedes C. Terwilliger
ACTLab Founder
Terwilliger did not live to see the fruition of his vision, but we who
push the boundaries of the possible are grateful to him. In our dedication
to the Great Work his spirit lives on.
Archimedes Calvin Terwilliger (1802-1910), truly a Renaissance man,
enjoyed a series of creative careers as an inventor (he is credited with
developing squid jerky), scholar (he definitively proved who was buried
in Grant's Tomb), and statesman (he served as Bergen County Coroner for over
twenty years)
before experiencing a religious epiphany in July of 1873. Immediately
following upon that experience he wrote in his journal that "God had caught me
up unto the heavens,
and in a flash of pure light did grant me a view of the future...and behold,
there were ranged before me in infinite ranks
a succession of mechanical Calculating-machines like unto those
described by the Lady Ada (Lovelace), and at each one a Student toiling amid the clatter of
the great wheels
in perfect absorption to his task, the issue of which shall
be nothing less than the Transformation of the World by means
of messages traveling faster than the swiftest Mule..."