Oliver Evans (1755–1819), inventor, engineer, and author, was apprenticed to a wheelwright in his native Delaware. By 1774 he became engrossed in designing steam engines and steam-powered land carriages. Ridiculed for his ideas, Evans turned to other labor-saving projects. About 1778 he built a machine to produce textile cards, and in the 1780s he designed improvements for the manufacturing of flour and meal, for which he received state patents in the 1780s and a federal patent in 1790. Two years later Evans moved to Philadelphia, where he established mercantile and milling enterprises and began to prosper. He expended considerable energy and employed a network of family members and agents to defend his patent rights and licenses from infringement. Evans published a popular handbook, The Young Mill-Wright & Miller’s Guide (Philadelphia, 1795, and later editions; Sowerby, description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, 1952–59, 5 vols. description ends no. 1180), and followed it a decade later with a work entitled The Abortion of the Young Steam Engineer’s Guide (Philadelphia, 1805). After 1800 he focused increasingly on the construction of high-pressure steam engines for waterworks, mills, and steamboats. In 1804 Evans built an amphibious steam-powered dredge for cleaning docks. By 1806 he founded the Mars Works in Philadelphia, and about 1811 he helped his son George Evans establish the Pittsburgh Steam Engine Company. Prior to TJ’s retirement he and the elder Evans communicated sporadically yet cordially regarding patent rights and inventions, as well as mill materials and licensing. In response to the opposition of TJ and others to his broad claims of patent rights, Evans disseminated a number of essays on patent law, including an angry, unsigned pamphlet, A Trip made by a Small Man in a Wrestle with a Very Great Man. Answer to the Baltimore Millers’ Memorial, and Thomas Jefferson’s Letter (n.p., 1814). Evans died in New York City, leaving an estate valued in excess of $30,000 (ANB description begins John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography, 1999, 24 vols. description ends ; DAB description begins Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, 1928–36, 20 vols. description ends ; Bathe and Bathe, Oliver Evans description begins Greville Bathe and Dorothy Bathe, Oliver Evans: A Chronicle of Early American Engineering, 1935, repr. 1972 description ends ; List of Patents description begins A List of Patents granted by the United States from April 10, 1790, to December 31, 1836, 1872 description ends , 4, 39–40, 62, 97; PTJ description begins Julian P. Boyd, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti, Barbara B. Oberg, and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 1950– , 34 vols. description ends , 24:683–4; Isaac McPherson to TJ, 3, 28 Aug. 1813; TJ to McPherson, 13 Aug., 18 Sept. 1813; TJ to John Wharton, 10 July 1818; Philadelphia Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser, 19 Apr. 1819).

TJ’s letter of august 13th 1813 was addressed to Isaac McPherson, who concealed his name when he included this letter in a published memorial to Congress. The act for Evans’s relief is described at McPherson to TJ, 3 Aug. 1813. In the case tryed in the circuit court of maryland during its November 1812 term, Oliver Evans v. Samuel Robinson, all of Evans’s patent rights were confirmed. The enclosed report on the case has not been identified. In Evans’s view the verdict “demonstrated conclusively his right, as an inventor, to his patented improvements; depicted in severe and glowing colors the depravity and baseness of those who had combined to defraud him of the fruits of his ingenuity; and maintained his claims and pretensions beyond all controversy, and established his genius and merits on an exalted and triumphant eminence” (Evans v. Robinson and other items supplied by Evans and printed in Baltimore Weekly Register, Addenda, 3 [1813]: 1–16; The Federal Cases: comprising Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit and District Courts of the United States [1894–97], 8:886–8 [case no. 4,571]). Other enclosure printed below.