To Thomas Jefferson from Gurdon F. Saltonstall, 25 May 1804
From Gurdon F. Saltonstall
[May] 25th. 1804—
[. . .] and Respected Sir—
With Profound Respect to your high Official Capacity as a Statesman and Philosopher, I submit tho’ with the greatest diffidence in my Own Judgment the enclosed plan of my Improved Air Pipes and bellows for supplying families with Pirfumed and Salubrious Air for Respiration—Perhaps it might be of service in large Cities and even in private families. If you think so and it is aproved by You, Meeting with your Patronage and Signature, I will truly esteem it as the highest Encomium that Can be Confer’d, and at the same time Consider myself under a lasting Obligation to you.
I am Sir with True Respect Your Humbl. Servt.
G. F: Saltonstall
Please cause to be handed the enclosed plan of my improved air pipes to Samuel H. Smith—
RC (MoSHi: Jefferson Papers); torn. Recorded in SJL as a letter of 25 May received from Fayetteville on 1 June. Enclosure not found, but see below.
Gurdon F. Saltonstall (1760-1836) was a chairmaker and inventor who resided in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Originally from Connecticut, Saltonstall served in the Revolutionary War and afterward relocated to North Carolina. Between 1801 and 1817, Saltonstall received several patents for inventions relating to ginning cotton, and in 1805 he advertised a device in local newspapers for “rendering the common air more salubrious for respiration.” By the 1830s, Saltonstall had purchased land in Kentucky and received a patent for an improvement in inland navigation that was intended to “preserve the lives and property” of steamboat passengers (Virgil D. White, Genealogical Abstracts of Revolutionary War Pension Files, 4 vols. [Waynesboro, Tenn., 1990-92], 3:3002; James H. Craig, The Arts and Crafts in North Carolina, 1699-1840 [Winston-Salem, 1965], 157, 159, 165; Quincy J. Scarborough, Jr., North Carolina Decorated Stoneware: The Webster School of Folk Potters [Fayetteville, 1986], 19; , 25, 31, 33, 184, 654; Wilmington Gazette, 4 June 1805; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, 14 July 1835; Richmond Enquirer, 17 July 1835; New-London Gazette, 24 Feb. 1836).