A former Scottish loom builder who was associated with an unsuccessful manufacturing venture in the 1790s, John Lithgow (d. 1834?) wrote anonymously or pseudonymously for several publications. He claimed authorship of The Collected Wisdom of Ages, the Most Stupendous Fabric of Human Invention, the English Constitution, written as “Timothy Telltruth” and published in Philadelphia in 1799. A serialized utopian tract, Equality—A Political Romance, published in 1802, and An Essay on the Manufacturing Interest of the United States, published in Philadelphia in 1804, are also attributed to him (Sowerby, description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, Washington, D.C., 1952-59, 5 vols. description ends No. 3309; PMHB description begins Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 1877- description ends , 106 [1982], 344, 346, 361–2; Baltimore Gazette and Daily Advertiser, 1 Oct. 1834; Lithgow to TJ, 24 Dec. 1804). For Lithgow’s background, see Vol. 37:318n.

temple of reason: according to his financial records, on 16 Feb. TJ had George Logan pay Henry Voigt $6 for the two volumes of the weekly deistic publication. The final issue of the newspaper was apparently that of 19 Feb. 1803 (MB description begins James A. Bear, Jr., and Lucia C. Stanton, eds., Jefferson’s Memorandum Books: Accounts, with Legal Records and Miscellany, 1767-1826, Princeton, 1997, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series description ends , 2:1092; Brigham, American Newspapers description begins Clarence S. Brigham, History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820, Worcester, Mass., 1947, 2 vols. description ends , 2:953–4).