Most people are well aware that Benjamin Franklin was one of the preeminent inventors of his day. You know, bifocals, lightening rods, catheters, the armonica, etc. I wrote about some of his inventions in a recent blog post. I hope you saw it.

But most people don’t really think of Thomas Jefferson as an inventor. He, of course, served on the committee to draft the Declaration of
Independence with Benjamin Franklin, and ultimately was chosen as the person on that committee to pen the original draft.

But as an inventor? Yes, Jefferson was a man of many talents and careers. He was a musician, a lawyer, an architect (he designed the Capitol Building in Richmond and the building of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville), a governor of Virginia, a diplomat (also with Benjamin Franklin in France), a linguist, a scientist and botanist, and yes, an inventor.

One thing he designed and built, was the first laptop computer. Okay, not really a computer, but the lap “desk” with which he travelled, and upon which he wrote his draft of the Declaration of Independence. He had it with him in his room at the Graff House in Philadelphia. On this lap desk he wrote that immortal document, The Declaration of Independence.

Jefferson and Franklin both invented, separately, a devise to copy their writings, their letters. Franklin invented a sort of a printer’s copy machine. Sort of a hand held device. While Jefferson invented what he called a “polygraph”. Jefferson’s copy machine was a contraption with two pens or quills attached to a device with which one pen could be used the write the letter, while the other would copy the same movement on a separate sheet of paper. A copy machine, prior to electricity! Which, of course, Franklin discovered was in the lightening.

Great minds think alike, and work together in this case!