[ docketing ]
03/04/1848
Pekin P. O.—D G Colburn patee[patentee]—3. deeds
Recd[Received] March 4 48[1848]
Benjamin Kellogg Jr. to Abraham Lincoln, 4 April 18481
Hon A. Lincoln Dear Sir
Sometime since I forwarded to the Comr of Patents 2 Deeds from Wm Wilcox & S M Whipple for the right of Colburns Improved Iron Pump, to several States & Territories (for which I paid a large amount) with a request to record the Deeds & return them to me also to informe me if they, ^Whipple & Wilcox^ had a Deed from Colburn the Patentee & if so to send me a Copy under seal of the Office, (I wish to dispose of a portion of the right and want to know all is right before I do so) since that time I have recd no Communication from the Patent Office, my O object in writing to you is to ascertain whether the deeds have been received and obtain the information I wrote for to the Office.2 Your friends are well DraG. H is here to remove his family to Springfield but is detained on a/c[account] of highWater
Yours TrulyBenj Kellogg Jr
[ endorsement ]
04/05/1848
The above deeds were sent to sent Apl[April] 5 Pekin P.O.[Post Office] Ills

<Page 2>
PEKIN
[?]
Hon A. Lincoln. M. C[Member Congress] Washington D.C
[ endorsement ]
04/20/1848U.S. Patent Office
Please examine this letter, and give me the desired information; and return this, to me with your own–A. Lincoln3
1Benjamin Kellogg, Jr. wrote the body of the letter, including the address on the last page, which was folded to make an envelope. An unknown clerk from the Patent Office wrote the docketing preceding Kellogg’s letter and endorsement succeeding it. Abraham Lincoln wrote the endorsement before the address.
2David G. Colburn was selling the rights to make or vend his invention in any part of the United States not otherwise disposed of through previously obtained rights.
William Wilcox and S. M. Whipple could not be positively identified.
W. H. Starr, ed., The Farmer and Mechanic (New York, 1847), 276.
3Lincoln responded to Kellogg on April 21.

Autograph Letter Signed, 2 page(s), Benjamin Kellogg Jr. Papers, Folder 1, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (Washington, DC).