1799 Thomas Jefferson Autograph Letter Signed ! - Apr 29, 2017 | Early American History Auctions In Ca
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1799 THOMAS JEFFERSON Autograph Letter Signed !

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1799 THOMAS JEFFERSON Autograph Letter Signed !
1799 THOMAS JEFFERSON Autograph Letter Signed !
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Autographs
Thomas Jefferson Redesigns the “Rumford Fireplace” at Monticello With Design Architectural Drawings in His Autograph Letter Signed “Th Jefferson” while Acting Vice-President of the United States

( Front Cover Illustration )
THOMAS JEFFERSON (1743-1826). 3rd President of the United States, American Founding Father, the Principal Author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and the Third President of the United States (1801–1809), served in the Continental Congress representing Virginia and then served as a Revolutionary Wartime Governor of Virginia (1779–1781), Jefferson served as a diplomat, stationed in Paris, in May 1785, he became the United States Minister to France.
May 2, 1799-Dated Federal Period, Autograph Letter Signed, “Th Jefferson”, 1 page, measuring 8” x 10”, at Monticello, Choice Very Fine. Expected faint folds and a few scattered minor tone specks, having some deft professional repair to two trivial chips along left margin not anywhere near or affecting any text or drawings. This amazing Letter is entirely in Jefferson’s hand, including two diagrams and design elements for his requested improvements for a fireplace Monticello. It was written while Thomas Jefferson was actively serving as the 2nd Vice President of the United States

(In office: March 4, 1797 - March 4, 1801). Here, Jefferson “redesigns” a custom Rumford Fireplace, while building Monticello with the concept that he could heat the whole house with wood, rather than with dirty and harder to acquire coal. Rumford fireplaces are tall and shallow to reflect more heat, and they have streamlined throats to eliminate turbulence and carry away the smoke with little loss of heated room air. Of great significance and rarity, this Letter also contains a quarter page of Design Architectural Drawings executed by Jefferson directly on his full-page Letter of instructions. A highly significant example from Jefferson, well written and easily readable in rich brown on clean high quality period laid paper and excellent for display. Docket, in another hand, on the blank reverse reads: “Thomas Jefferson”.

Jefferson writes, in full:

“Monticello May 2, (17)99 --- Dear Sir --- Mr. P. Carr informed me two days ago that you wished for the dimensions of the Rumford fireplaces. I therefore avail myself of the first post to send them I state them as I have used them myself, with great satisfaction, the back one half of the opening. Count Rumford makes the back but one third of the opening. This was to accommodate them to coal; but it renders them impracticable for wood. My larger fireplaces I make 2.f. in the back & 4.f. in front; those for bed-rooms 19 ½ I. In back & 3f. 3i. in front. The opening of the former 3.f. 3. I. or 3. F. 6 i. high, the latter 3f. high. The figures below will show every thing necessary. Affectionate salutations. -- (Signed) Th. Jefferson.”

Jefferson continues with his text, being written below and to the right, along side of his design drawings and specific calculations, writing in full:

“This is the form where one has a new chimney to make and can arrange every thing To their will... -- suppose an old fire place to be newly arranged, that it’s depth is from a to b, it ‘s breast c-d only 4 I. then the new back must be made of such thickness as to bring the depth to 13.I. from a. to g. It must run up perpendicular to about .e. the height of the old iron back, then father forward to f. within 4 I. of the breast, then parallel to the inside of the breast 6. I. higher to H. and then go square off to the back of the old flue, i. As the plans & dimensions of old fireplaces vary, the new work must vary also to be adapted to them observing always, as fixed principles, that the fireplace must be 13 I. deep, the back worked up perpendicular some height (say 2/3) & then brought to within 4 I. of the breast, then to rise parallel with that 6. I. more, then to go off square to the back of the old flue.”

A remarkable, truly wonderful Letter demonstrating Thomas Jefferson’s keen interest in technology, invention and innovation. The house was heated primarily by fireplaces (at the rate of about ten cords of wood per month). From 1795, Jefferson used wood-burning stoves (both open and closed) in certain rooms. In the late 1790s, he altered the dimensions of his fireplaces to apply the fuel-saving principles of Count von Rumford. Here, he directly incorporates his redesign directly into the building structure heating his beloved home, Monticello.

See: https://www.monticello.org/site/blog-and-community/tags/rumford-fireplace
Count Rumford, for whom the fireplace is named, was born Benjamin Thompson in Woburn, Massachusetts in 1753.

Being a staunch British Loyalist, Rumford evacuated from Boston with the British in 1776. He spent much of his life as a British emissary to Bavaria where he received his title, Count Rumford.

Rumford is known primarily for the work he did on the nature of heat. Later in life, back in England, Rumford applied his knowledge of heat to the improvement of fireplaces. He made them smaller and shallower so they would radiate better. He streamlined the throat, or in his words “rounded off the breast” so as to “remove those local hindrances which forcibly prevent the smoke from following its natural tendency to go up the chimney.”

Rumford wrote two papers detailing his improvements on fireplaces in 1796 and in 1798. He was well known and widely read in his lifetime and almost immediately in the 1790’s his “Rumford fireplace” became the “state of the art” worldwide, and remained so until wood-burning fireplaces more or less went out of fashion in favor of coal and later gas fireplaces in the 1850s.

There are many original Rumford style fireplaces in pre-1850 homes in this country. For example, Thomas Jefferson had Rumford fireplaces built at Monticello and the President of William and Mary College in Williamsburg had his fireplaces “Rumfordized” in 1824. Thoreau listed them among the modern conveniences that everyone took for granted.
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1799 THOMAS JEFFERSON Autograph Letter Signed !

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