This device, presented to the APS in 1850 by one of Jefferson’s law students (and husband of his granddaughter), was reportedly owned and used by the president. This ”polygraph,” meaning ”writing of many,” helped relieve the tedium of copying documents by hand. As the author of the original document moved one of the polygraph pens, the other moved simultaneously, producing an exact copy. John Isaac Hawkins patented the device in 1803, and Thomas Jefferson and Charles Willson Peale promoted its use. Jefferson, who wrote thousands of personal and professional letters, was a particularly enthusiastic endorser of the polygraph.