1From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 28 December 1825 (Jefferson Papers)
In mine of the 1 st I mentioned that I would send my other Polygraph by mr Millar of Germantown a Student of ours who would return after vacation. I did so and he promised to call on you with it on his arrival in Philadelphia, which would be about the 20 th since that I have had full trial of my gold pen points which I recieved safely in yours of the 9 th they answer so perfectly and so much...
2From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 1 December 1825 (Jefferson Papers)
M r Heiskill delivered my Polygraph safe and in good condition, and when I consider how much time and labor it has saved me since his return I look back with regret to that which I have lost by the want of it a year or two. the gold pens write charmingly as free pens, and I use them for my common writing in preference to the quill. but when applied to the polygraph I find that they make the...
3From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 15 September 1825 (Jefferson Papers)
I recieved yesterday, and with great pleasure, your favor of the 10 th informing me of your good health, which I hope may long continue. for 7. years past mine has been sensibly declining, and latterly is quite broken down. I have now been confined to the house, and chiefly to my couch, for 4 months, by a derangement of the urinary system, which as yet exhibits no prospect of a definite...
4From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 18 July 1824 (Jefferson Papers)
I do not wonder that visitors to your Museum come from afar if not equal to some in Europe it possessed much which they have not. of the advantage of Mr. Waterton’s mode of preserving animal subjects with sublimate instead of arsenic you are the best judge. I greatly wish success to Rembrandt in his new enterprise of the equestrian portrait of General Washington. he is no doubt however aware...
5From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 15 February 1824 (Jefferson Papers)
Altho’ writing is a difficulty with me, yet once in awhile I must ask my old friends How they do? your welcome letter of Jan. 25. now furnishes an occasion. the most acceptable part of it is that which assures me of your continuance in health, and in the enjoyment of your faculties, insomuch that you can still exercise your art with satisfaction. as long as the eyes retain their acumen, and...
6From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 26 February 1823 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of the 8 th has been recieved with the Polygraph wire you were so kind as to send me. your friendly attention to my little wants kindle the most lively sentiments of thankfulness in me. the breaking of an ink-glass, the derangement of a wire, which cannot be supplied in a country situation like ours, would render an instrument of cost and of incalculable value entirely useless; as...
7From Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 23 October 1822 (Jefferson Papers)
I could never be a day without thinking of you, were it only for my daily labors at the Polygraph for which I am indebted to you. it is indeed an excellent one, and after 12. or 14. years of hard service it has failed in nothing except the spiral springs of silver wire which suspend the pen-frame. these are all but disabled, and my fingers are too clumsy to venture to rectify them, were they...
8Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 28 December 1820 (Jefferson Papers)
‘ Nothing is troublesome which we do willingly ’ is an excellent apophthegm, and which can be applied to no mind more truly than yours. on this ground I am sure you will be so good as to exchange the pair of inkglasses you sent me, & which the furnisher will doubtless exchange. they are a little too large to enter the sockits of my the polygraph I keep in Bedford , as I found on a late visit...
9Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 26 August 1820 (Jefferson Papers)
I ought sooner to have thanked you for your sketch of the Court of death, which we have all contemplated with great approbation of the composition and design. it presents to the eye more morality than many written volumes, and with impressions much more durable and indelible. I have been sensible that the scriptural paintings in the Catholic churches produce deeper impressions on the people...
10Thomas Jefferson to Charles Willson Peale, 22 April 1820 (Jefferson Papers)
I thank you, dear Sir, for the razor strap you have been so kind as to send me , which is the more acceptable as I am but a poor barber. I shall immediately avail myself of it’s abridgment of labor in razor-strapping. With respect to the plough, your observations are entirely just, as I know by my own experience. the first ploughs I made were 9.I. longer, and so effectual in their...