Existing comment:
President Thomas Jefferson's polygraph, made by Hawkins and Peale. Patented by John Isaac Hawkins in 1803, a polygraph's pens create simultaneous copies of a writer's manuscript. Jefferson acquired his first polygraph in 1804 and suggested improvements to Charles Willson Peale, owner of the American rights. A prolific letter writer, Jefferson called the polygraph "the finest invention of the present age." |