the favour of his company: Samuel L. Mitchill wrote to his wife on 4 Feb. 1802: “One day last week (Wednesday I believe) I dined with President Jefferson again. He has a party of from seven to ten to dine with him every day. Our Company were Mr. Vice-President, Mr. Baldwin Senator from Georgia, Mr. Brackenridge from Kentucky Mr. J. Smith of Long Island, Mr. Brown of Kentucky and a few others He has lately got a printed Card of invitation, to save the Trouble of writing so much every Day. As a Sample of this improved mode of invitation I inclose it for you” (Samuel L. Mitchill to Catharine Mitchill, 4 Feb. 1802, in MiU-C: Samuel Latham Mitchill Papers).

The invitation printed above appears to have been salvaged from a batch of printed forms that TJ employed during his time as secretary of state. It is identical to the description of a printed invitation he sent to William Cushing in 1793, a card about 3 inches by 4 inches with its message centered inside an oval ring. In contrast, the new invitation blanks that TJ had printed early in 1802 were in standard block format, without the oval. TJ used the new design through his presidency. He had it made in two versions: one style, intended for dinners with members of Congress, included the addendum: “or at whatever later hour the house may rise,” which was omitted from the other version. TJ retained blanks of the early oval design as late as 1825, when he used the backs of four of them to record mail stage schedules (R. B. Field, “Details of Collecting,” Philatelic West, 28 [1904], n.p.; Vol. 36:xlvi-xlvii, 437, 503; stage travel timetable, 22 Dec. 1825, MS in DLC).