James Sylvanus McLean, a native of York, Pennsylvania, received a patent for an improvement in pianofortes on 27 May 1796 and wrote TJ about his ideas for using steam engines to power agricultural machinery. He apparently spent the night of 20 May 1809 at Monticello. In 1812 McLean was acquitted due to insanity in a trial for conspiracy to extort money from Stephen Girard, a wealthy merchant and philanthropist in Philadelphia. Witnesses then described McLean as educated, well read, and a talented musician, but also as a paranoiac man who claimed that he had “been educated in the family of General Washington, been ill treated by Mr. Jefferson, and had lost his fortune by col. Burr.” They also reported that he was once “prevented from murdering his wife and children in a fit of madness” (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 , 11; McLean to TJ, 30 Sept. 1802 [DLC]; A Report of the Trial, of James Sylvanus M’Clean, alias J. Melville, and William L. Graham before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania [Philadelphia, 1812]; quotations on pp. 8, 18).