To Thomas Jefferson from John Trimnul and Oddy B. Sheldin, 10 May 1805
From John Trimnul and Oddy B. Sheldin
May the 10th 1805
This is to In form the president of the United States that the In Vin Shen of a wheel that runs perpetidle with out wind or warter or Steem that never runs down can be Repre Sinted In a Short time at the Seet of con Gress the Great Ist In vention that ever has bin found out for the use of clocks and Mills of all cinds from Six Inches to eightty feet diammeter the Greatist addition to the none world and if the Con Gress thinks proper to notice these lines In as much as to Send an answer to the same further if they think well ov our foreding such wheel mur Sheers we will In de ver to Com forward In Short time with the Same we are now In the State of west new Jersey In the County of Gloucester In the town Ship of wool wedge at the malligo mills on the head of prins Morrises River these from your friends
John Trimnul
Oddy B Sheldin
RC (MHi); in Trimnul’s hand, signed by Sheldin; endorsed by TJ as received from Woolwich, New Jersey, on 17 May and “Perpetual motion.”
John Trimnul, whose name might have been more typically listed as “Trimnel,” was almost certainly the same individual identified as a prominent early resident and millwright in Woolfordtown (later Plainville) in what became Franklin Township, Gloucester County, New Jersey (Thomas Cushing and Charles E. Sheppard, History of the Counties of Gloucester, Salem, and Cumberland New Jersey, with Biographical Sketches of Their Prominent Citizens [Philadelphia, 1883], 214).
Oddy (or Odey) B. Sheldin (Sheldon) appears in records from Salem County, New Jersey, and the Sheldon family (Genealogical Magazine of New Jersey, 4 [1928-29], 166; Henry Olcott Sheldon, The Sheldon Magazine, or, A Genealogical List of the Sheldons in America, with Biographical and Historical Notes [Loudonville, Ohio, 1855], 14).
prins Morrises River: that is, the Maurice River.