1From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 5 June 1796 (Jefferson Papers)
I have recieved a proposition from Europe which may perhaps be turned to account for the enlargement of your Museum. The hereditary prince of Parma, a young man of letters, of 22. years of age, lately married to a daughter of the K. of Spain, is desirous of augmenting his cabinet of Natural history by an addition of all the American subjects of the 3 departments of nature and will give those...
2From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 21 February 1801 (Jefferson Papers)
I have to thank you for a copy of your introductory lecture recieved some time since, & not before acknoleged for want of time. I have read it with great pleasure, and lament that while I have been so near to your valuable collection, occupations much less pleasing to me have always put it out of my power to avail myself of it. may I ask the favor of you to present my request to your son that...
3From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 29 July 1801 (Jefferson Papers)
I have to acknolege the reciept of your favors of June 29. & July 25. to congratulate you on the prospect you have of obtaining a compleat skeleton of the great incognitum, and the world on there being a person at the critical moment of the discovery who has zeal enough to devote himself to the recovery of these great animal monuments. Mr. Smith the Secretary of the Navy will give orders...
4From Thomas Jefferson to John Vaughan and Charles Willson Peale, 13 January 1802 (Jefferson Papers)
I have to acknolege the reciept of your favor of the 1st. inst. informing me that the American Philosophical society had again elected me President of the society for the ensuing year. for this mark of their continued favor, I pray you to present them a renewal of my thanks and of my profound respect. I have still to lament that my distance & other occupations leave me nothing but expressions...
5From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 16 January 1802 (Jefferson Papers)
I recieved last night your favor of the 12th. instant. no person on earth can entertain a higher idea than I do of the value of your collection nor give you more credit for the unwearied perseverance & skill with which you have prosecuted it. and I very much wish it could be made public property. but as to the question whether I think that the US. would encourage or provide for the...
6From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 5 May 1802 (Jefferson Papers)
I am this moment setting out on a short visit to Monticello, but a thought coming into my head which may be useful to your son who is carrying the Mammoth to Europe , I take time to hint it to you. my knolege of the scene he will be on enables me to suggest what might not occur to him a stranger. when in a great city, he will find persons of every degree of wealth. to jumble these all into a...
7From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 3 November 1802 (Jefferson Papers)
Immediately on the reciept of your favor of Oct. 28. I wrote to a friend of mine, mr Michael Bowyer who owns & resides at the Sweet springs , on the subject of the bones you mention as lately found in a cave of Greenbriar county, and which are probably of the Megalonyx. I observed to him that I had learned that the finder was preparing to send them to you; that if that was done, it was all...
8From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 23 January 1803 (Jefferson Papers)
I thank you for mr Rembrandt Peale’s pamphlet on the Mammoth, and feeling a strong interest in his succesful exhibition of the Skeleton, shall be very happy to hear he has the great run of visitants which I expect he will have. I was struck with the notice in the papers of mr Hawkins’s physiognotrace, of the work of which you send me some specimens, which I percieve must have been taken from...
9From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 27 February 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
Mr. Latrobe promised a few days ago to write to you to have me furnished with a polygraph of two pens, and that his experience would enable him to give some directions about it which would be useful. he was to desire particularly that there should be a drawer in each end, without any partitions in the drawers, because I would have them made here to suit my own convenience. I should also prefer...
10From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 1 March 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
I recieved last night your favor of the 26th. and thank you for the pen accompanying it, which seems to perform well. I had written to you on the 27th. Ult. on the subject of the Polygraph. the reduction of the size which you propose for a future trial would certainly be a great improvement; it’s present bulk being disagreeable. I observe too that after one has adjusted the pens by the gage,...
11From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 9 March 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
Th: Jefferson presents his salutations to mr Peale. he recieved last night his favor of the 5th. he will leave this place for Monticello a fortnight hence, and will be absent 5. or 6. weeks, which he mentions now because as the Polygraphs will arrive after his departure his acknolegement of their reception and his return of Brunelle’s cannot be till his return to this place in May. RC ( TxU )....
12From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 30 March 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
Tomorrow I set out for Monticello, and very fortunately I recieved last night the two polygraphs. this morning I tried them. I was charmed with the ingenuity and beautiful workmanship of Brunel’s, and proportionably mortified on trial to find I could not produce a copy of a single letter distinct, altho’ I perfectly understood the action of all it’s parts, and saw that there was nothing...
13From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 23 April 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
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: it was therefore the subject of my meditations on the road, and on my arrival here I made the drawings which I now send you. I have adopted your idea of having it in the form of a desk to sit on one’s writing table, & not that of a box to shut...
14From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 15 May 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
I arrived here the night before last, and yesterday recieved from the post office your favor of Apr. 29. with others which had been accumulating there for me. I hasten to answer it in order that the polygraph desk you have in hand for me may have the benefit of the improvements you mention. to wit the screw to move the stay pen. the improvement in the pen-bar. Hawkins’s improvement by a stay...
15From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 21 May 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
I recieved last night your favor of the 19th. and am sorry you have paid so much respect to my dimensions as to puzzle yourself with them, and still more to alter the writing machinery. they were meant to be entirely subject to your correction, & they are still so. I made the drawing from memory, & have seen since I returned here and have had a polygraph under my eye that I had not left room...
16From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 14 June 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
I send you by this post the drawings for another Polygraph desk. I take for it’s foundation that I am now writing on, which is indeed very nearly perfect. wherever therefore I have not proposed an alteration, I wish the new one to be exactly as the old. I adopt exactly the same length & breadth of desk. the position of the writing machinery is left precisely the same, & the machinery itself....
17From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 20 June 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
I inclose you two essays of mr Burwell at my profile . I also inclose you the receipt of Capt Ellwood for your Polygraph . he sails this day. besides that the small round inkpot of 1¾ I. diam. or square one of 1½ I. and only 1. I. deep, necessary for perfecting your machine, you will find it necessary to throw away the common stopper which rises ½ I. above the top of the pot, and to substitute...
18From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 19 August 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
I recieved two days ago the polygraph lately sent me . it arrived in good order, except that the forked spiral spring which suspends the bar with the friction cylinder was broke. in attempting to connect it again by links it broke repeatedly, and tho’ I succeeded at last so as to use it, yet it is become so short as to perform it’s functions poorly. perhaps you could send me a new spring (for...
19From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 15 September 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
Your letter containing the Spiral spring was recieved in due time. a mode of constructing your polygraph which might render it more portable occurred to me and as it took me less time to give verbal directions to my workmen for a model, than to make a drawing for you, I have had a model made which I send you by this post. it is of half size in all it’s dimensions, whence you will see that in...
20From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 6 October 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of Sep. 23. was recieved on my arrival here, and I have no doubt that between yourself and mr Hawkins the Polygraph will be rendered perfect. for the one I have at Monticello you were so kind as to send me a pair of brass pen-cases with the screw top and for recieving the small bit of a quill pen, which I found so much better suited to my handwriting and so easily susceptible of...
21From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 13 October 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
I have duly recieved your favor of the 8th. which excites a great curiosity in me to see mr Hawkins’s polygraph: and as you say you are sending one to the Secretary of state, which I know to be for his office, for it was on my recommendation, I will ask the favor of you to address it to me, that I may have an opportunity of seeing & trying it. it shall then be delivered to it’s address, and in...
22From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 7 November 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
The two polygraphs you sent by the stage arrived in perfect order. the improvement in the writing apparatus is indeed precious. I find the pen now as light as a free pen. I immediately delivered to mr Madison the largest, with which he is well pleased, and I retain the smaller and more portable one. it pleases me extremely, and I do not know that I could desire an addition to it, but your...
23From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 17 November 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
I recieved last night your favor of the 14th. I continue extremely satisfied with the facility of writing with the new Polygraph. mr. Hawkins’s box may be considerably improved in it’s form. instead of having it in the form Fig. 1. the upper lid should on the hinge side be bevilled off at a.b. thro’ it’s whole length (from West to East.) then when you wish to use it, not for copying, but as a...
24From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 28 November 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
Passing as I do the active hours of my life in my study, I have found it essential to bring all the implements I use there within the narrowest compas possible; & in no case to lose a single inch of space which can be made to hold any thing. hence every thing is placed within my reach without getting out of my chair. on this principle I approve of the two drawers to the Polygraph proposed in...
25Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 10 March 1809 (Jefferson Papers)
Being just on the eve of my departure for Monticello I must write you a short letter returning you a thousand thanks for the portrait of my grandson , which is indeed inimitably done. I do not know whether age impairs the faculties of your art, but I am sure it would do honor to any period of life. it will be a treasure to his parents & not less so to me. as he wished to see them & had a month...
26Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 5 May 1809 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of Apr. 3. came to hand on the 23 d of April . I have no doubt that the marked differences between the elephant & our colossal animal entitle him to a distinct appellation. one of those differences, & a striking one, is in the protuberances on the grinding surface of the teeth, somewhat in the shape of the mamma, mastos, or breast of a woman, which has induced Cuvier to call it the...
27Thomas Jefferson to Charles Wilson Peale, 22 August 1809 (Jefferson Papers)
I have been for some time endeavoring to procure bills of some bank in Philadelphia to enable me to remit you the balance of 49. D 5½ C due you on account of my grandson . finding there is little hope of this, I have this day inclosed to my friend mr Barnes of Georgetown , bills of that place, & prayed him to exchange them for a draught of the Washington bank on that of the US. at Philadelphia...
28Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 20 August 1811 (Jefferson Papers)
It is long, my dear Sir, since we have exchanged a letter. our former correspondence had always some little matter of business interspersed; but this being at an end, I shall still be anxious to hear from you sometimes, and to know that you are well & happy. I know indeed that your system is that of contentment under any situation. I have heard that you have retired from the city to a farm, &...
29Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 17 April 1813 (Jefferson Papers)
I had long owed you a letter for your favor of Aug. 19. when I recieved, eight days ago that of Mar. 2. 18 12 . a slip of the pen, I suppose for 18 13 . and the pamphlet accompanying it strengthens the supposition. I thank you for the pamphlet. it is full of good sense & wholsome advice, and I am making all my grandchildren read it, married & unmarried: and the story of farmer Jenkins will I...
30Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 21 March 1815 (Jefferson Papers)
I have been long your debtor in our epistolary account. a farmer being privileged to write only on rainy Sundays, his pen-work is apt to accumulate and get into arrears. in so hard a winter too as we have had, one was could not but yield to the pleasure of hovering over a fire with a book, rather than go to the writing table. we have indeed had a hard winter. our average of snow in a common...
31Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 13 June 1815 (Jefferson Papers)
In your favor of May 2. you ask my advice on the best mode of selling your Museum, on which however I really am not qualified to advise. this depends entirely on the genius and habits of those among whom you live, with which you are so much better acquainted. I wish first it may be disposed of the most to your advantage, and 2 dly that it may not be separated. if profit be regarded, the...
32Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 8 May 1816 (Jefferson Papers)
I am indebted to you for two letters yet unacknolegged unacknoledged , to wit of June 18. and Dec. 23. 15. I pay three or four visits a year to a very distant possession I have in Bedford , where, being comfortably fixed, I pass a month or two at a time, so that it is almost a second home. it is in the finest part of our state for soil & climate, and near to Lynchburg ; now the 2
33Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 17 August 1816 (Jefferson Papers)
In your’s of July 7. you informed me you had found a young watchmaker of good character disposed to come here, who had taken time to consider of it. hearing nothing further of him, & being now within a fortnight of departure to Bedford where I shall be 6. weeks I am anxious to know of a certainty; because were he to come during my absence he might not find the same facilities for first...
34Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 24 December 1816 (Jefferson Papers)
I recieved in October a letter from mr M c Ilhenny whom you were so kind as to recommend as a watchmaker, informing me he would come on to establish himself at Charlottesville as soon as he could hear from me. I was just about setting out on a journey to Bedford , and answered him therefore by advising him to postpone his coming till my return. he did so, and arrived in Charlottesville by the...
35Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 16 March 1817 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of Feb. 28. came to hand yesterday evening only. mr M c Ilhenny is right in saying he left a letter for me; but I did not get it till a month after he went away. however all is well. we have had the good fortune to get a Swiss from Neufchatel , inferior, I think, to no watchmaker I have ever known. sober, industrious, and moderate. he brought me recommendations from Doct r Patterson...
36Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 18 February 1818 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of Jan. 15. is recieved, and I am indebted to you for others; but the torpitude of increasing years, added to a stiffening wrist making writing a slow & painful operation, makes me also a slow correspondent. I promised you a plough so long ago that I dare say you have forgot it: but I have this day sent it to Richmond to be forwarded to you. I claim nothing in it but the mould board...
37Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 7 August 1819 (Jefferson Papers)
Passing considerable portions of my time at this place, I keep for use here the portable Polygraph which mr Hawkins was so kind as to send me. but I have had the misfortune to break one of it’s ink glasses , which suspends it’s use, as no such thing can be got here. and to whom can I apply to replace it but to a friend in small things as well as great. without apology therefore I inclose you...
38Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 22 April 1820 (Jefferson Papers)
I thank you, dear Sir, for the razor strap you have been so kind as to send me , which is the more acceptable as I am but a poor barber. I shall immediately avail myself of it’s abridgment of labor in razor-strapping. With respect to the plough, your observations are entirely just, as I know by my own experience. the first ploughs I made were 9.I. longer, and so effectual in their...
39Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 26 August 1820 (Jefferson Papers)
I ought sooner to have thanked you for your sketch of the Court of death, which we have all contemplated with great approbation of the composition and design. it presents to the eye more morality than many written volumes, and with impressions much more durable and indelible. I have been sensible that the scriptural paintings in the Catholic churches produce deeper impressions on the people...
40Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 28 December 1820 (Jefferson Papers)
‘ Nothing is troublesome which we do willingly ’ is an excellent apophthegm, and which can be applied to no mind more truly than yours. on this ground I am sure you will be so good as to exchange the pair of inkglasses you sent me, & which the furnisher will doubtless exchange. they are a little too large to enter the sockits of my the polygraph I keep in Bedford , as I found on a late visit...
41From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 23 October 1822 (Jefferson Papers)
I could never be a day without thinking of you, were it only for my daily labors at the Polygraph for which I am indebted to you. it is indeed an excellent one, and after 12. or 14. years of hard service it has failed in nothing except the spiral springs of silver wire which suspend the pen-frame. these are all but disabled, and my fingers are too clumsy to venture to rectify them, were they...
42From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 26 February 1823 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of the 8 th has been recieved with the Polygraph wire you were so kind as to send me. your friendly attention to my little wants kindle the most lively sentiments of thankfulness in me. the breaking of an ink-glass, the derangement of a wire, which cannot be supplied in a country situation like ours, would render an instrument of cost and of incalculable value entirely useless; as...
43From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 15 February 1824 (Jefferson Papers)
Altho’ writing is a difficulty with me, yet once in awhile I must ask my old friends How they do? your welcome letter of Jan. 25. now furnishes an occasion. the most acceptable part of it is that which assures me of your continuance in health, and in the enjoyment of your faculties, insomuch that you can still exercise your art with satisfaction. as long as the eyes retain their acumen, and...
44From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 18 July 1824 (Jefferson Papers)
I do not wonder that visitors to your Museum come from afar if not equal to some in Europe it possessed much which they have not. of the advantage of Mr. Waterton’s mode of preserving animal subjects with sublimate instead of arsenic you are the best judge. I greatly wish success to Rembrandt in his new enterprise of the equestrian portrait of General Washington. he is no doubt however aware...
45From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 15 September 1825 (Jefferson Papers)
I recieved yesterday, and with great pleasure, your favor of the 10 th informing me of your good health, which I hope may long continue. for 7. years past mine has been sensibly declining, and latterly is quite broken down. I have now been confined to the house, and chiefly to my couch, for 4 months, by a derangement of the urinary system, which as yet exhibits no prospect of a definite...
46From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 1 December 1825 (Jefferson Papers)
M r Heiskill delivered my Polygraph safe and in good condition, and when I consider how much time and labor it has saved me since his return I look back with regret to that which I have lost by the want of it a year or two. the gold pens write charmingly as free pens, and I use them for my common writing in preference to the quill. but when applied to the polygraph I find that they make the...
47From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 28 December 1825 (Jefferson Papers)
In mine of the 1 st I mentioned that I would send my other Polygraph by mr Millar of Germantown a Student of ours who would return after vacation. I did so and he promised to call on you with it on his arrival in Philadelphia, which would be about the 20 th since that I have had full trial of my gold pen points which I recieved safely in yours of the 9 th they answer so perfectly and so much...
48From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 5 April 1805 (Jefferson Papers)
Your 8vo. Polygraph arrived at Washington just in time for me to bring it on here, where I have used it and still use it constantly. altho’ the machinery will require your rectification to make it quite a good one, yet it is sufficient to shew that the reduction of size is not only practicable, but useful in proportion to it’s reduction, for those who travel. I have therefore bestowed some...
49From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 9 April 1805 (Jefferson Papers)
My letter of the 5th. had been written but not sent off when I recieved yours of Mar. 30. with the new penbar. this finds me so near my departure for Washington that all is now hurry. I have not time therefore to change the penbars for trying the Diagonal writing; & I should not be without fear of deranging the machine, & losing the use of it while I yet stay & while I have much to write. I...
50From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 20 April 1805 (Jefferson Papers)
According to my letter of the 5th. from Monticello, I sent the desk-Polygraph by water viâ Richmond, addressed to you; & brought with me your 8vo. one, & my model which are now sent to the stage office to be forwarded. in making one for me according to my model, I leave to yourself entirely the thickness of the stuff, so that whatever that is more than half an inch, will be added to the...