Cadwallader Washburn Kelsey was born into a well-to-do family living in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia. He preferred being called Carl. In 1897, at age 17, he built his first car, a four-wheeler - and, when he entered Haverford College the year following, he constructed his second with a school chum named Sheldon Tilney. It was powered by a single-cylinder 5hp Buffalo engine, had two wheeles in front and one in the rear, and was dubbed Autotri. The boys decided to proceed into manufacture and got as far as designing an emblem, when their respective fathers intervened and sent their progeny back to their studies because the automobile was an 'instrument of the devil'. He made several other cars befor 1920, when Kelsey Motor Company was organized in Newark (New Jersey) with a factory in Belleville to produce cars.
The story of this man is quite interesting (and quite long) at the end of his life, when he was 80, he made the Skycar, a two-man helicopter!
