Beschreibung:

JEFFERSON, THOMAS, President . Autograph letter signed ("Th: Jefferson"), apparently to John Vaughan in Philadelphia; Monticello, 2 December 1825. 1/2 page, 4to, unobtrusive mat-burn, but in very good condition. THE POLYGRAPH, "A MOST PRECIOUS INVENTION," AND MARBLE FOR MONTICELLO An interesting letter regarding objects being imported for Monticello and referring to the polygraph, a mechanical device highly regarded by the ex-President. "It is more than a fortnight since I received your favor of Nov. 11 stating the balance due from me 11 D[ollars] 59 C[ents] for duties on my cases of marble, and I have been endeavoring to get US. bank bills to remit it to you, but a single 10 D[ollar] bill of that bank is all I have been able to get in our uncommercial place. I add therefore a 5 D[ollar] Virginia note, which I presume is passable at its regular discount. There will be a fractional surplus which, if you will be so good as to put in the hands of Mr. [Charles Willson] Peale, it will relieve your books of keeping such trifles on them, and cover a small matter of rectification to my polygraph which he is kind enough to undertake to have done for me. Ever and affectionately yours Th:Jefferson." Jefferson became interested in the mechanical polygraph in 1804, while President, probably under the pressure of his heavy load of correspondence. Until then, it had been his practice to make file copies of his letters by using a press to transfer the ink. The polygraph, by a complex and delicately calibrated series of interlocking wooden arms, pivots, and two pens, would produce, in theory, two identical copies of any letter or document. The user wrote with one of the two pens on a sheet of paper; his precise movements were communicated by the wooden arms to the second pen, which duplicated the movements on another sheet. The American rights to the invention were held by Jefferson's friend Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827). Peale, who had served in the Continental Army, was an accomplished painter and engraver with a great interest in natural sciences; in 1802 he established in Philadelphia a Museum and Art Gallery, which included portraits of distinguished Americans by himself, his son, Rembrandt Peale and others, housed on the second floor of Independence Hall. Jefferson and Peale corresponded at length on the subject of the ploygraph. One example was sold to Benjamin F. Latrobe, from whom Jefferson borrowed it before purchasing one for himself. An inveterate tinkerer, Jefferson had many ideas for improving the device which he communicated to his friend Peale. In April 1804 he sent a set of plans for an modified machine to Peale, explaining that, "Your Polygraph gave me so much satisfaction that I thought it worth while to bestow some time in contriving one entirely suited to my own convenience...." (quoted by D. Malone, Jefferson the President, 1970, p.419). This was shortly after the death of his daughter Maria, and as Malone writes, "a fascinating invention provided him with a salutary distraction in a period when grave solicitude was followed by deep grief." For many months Jefferson and Peale corresponded and tinkered; Jefferson eventually ordered a second polygraph to use at Monticello. He regarded the device, he told Peale, as "a most precious invention" ( ibid. , 421), and it is evident from the present letter, some twenty years later, that Jefferson continued to find it useful in spite of its frequent need of repair, which Peale apparently undertook for him when it was required. A letter from Peale of 30 September 1825 concerned modifications to be made to the gold pens of the instrument, perhaps the same "rectification" referred to in the present letter ( Calendar of the Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson 2:449). One of Jefferson's original polygraphs is illustrated in Malone, p.420.