To Thomas Jefferson from Oliver Evans, 24 December 1804
From Oliver Evans
Washington Decr 24th 1804
Sir
Having heard Several members of Congress express that the President delighted much in hearing of useful Mechanical & Philosophical improvements being discovered in this country Be pleased to accept of the enclosed description which I have laid before the members of congress individually in support of my application to them for an extention of my Patent Term for my improvements on merchant Flour Mills to enable me to continue my expensive experiments in persuit of other usefull improvements which I have therin described—I am
Sir with the most profound respect your Obdt Huml Servt
Oliver Evans
RC (DLC); endorsed by TJ as received 25 Dec. and so recorded in SJL. Enclosure: Oliver Evans, printed “short description of the principles of Steam Engines” for the information of senators and representatives (DLC: TJ Papers, 145:25326-7; , No. 6265).
extention: on 21 Dec. Evans’s petition for an extension of his patent on flour mills was introduced in the House of Representatives and referred to the Committee on Commerce and Manufactures. The following month, the committee endorsed Evans’s memorial and recommended a bill to allow patent holders to extend the terms of their protection (, 5:63, 99; Report from the Committee of Commerce and Manufactures, To Whom Was Referred on the Twenty First Ultimo, the Petition of Oliver Evans, of the City of Philadelphia [Washington, D.C., 1805], 4).
other usefull improvements: Evans was in the process of improving two patents relating to steam engines that he had received in February 1804 (, 40; Greville Bathe and Dorothy Bathe, Oliver Evans: A Chronicle of Early American Engineering [Philadelphia, 1935], 88-102).