AN IMPROVED KALIGRAPH OR WRITING MACHINE FOR WRITING AND SIMILAR PURPOSES
Year: 1857

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Charles Thurber, of the City and County of Wor-
cester, and State of Massachusetts, United States of America, for the
Invention of "AN IMPROVED KALIGRAPH OR WRITING MACHINE FOR WRITING
AND SIMILAR PURPOSES."
Scaled the 22nd December 1857, and dated the 27th June 1857.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Charles Thurber at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition,, on the 27th
June 1857.
f
I, CHARES THURBER, of the City & County of Worcester, and State of
Massachusetts, United States of America, do hereby declare the nature of the
said Invention for "AN IMPROVED KALIGRAPH OR WRITING MACHINE FOR WRITING
AND SIMILAR PURPOSES," to be as follows:-
In the combination of an apparatus consisting of a stylus or tracer and a
pen or marker so connected with each other by levers of different lengths
that the pen or marker may follow accurately, but on a reduced scale, all the
movements imparted to the stylus or tracer, with a desk or table, by means
of an universal joint, thereby enabling a person to write the usual sized
characters by tracing characters of a large size. Also, in combining said
writing apparatus with another apparatus or contrivance for shifting the paper,
whereby the paper is moved the distance sufficient to give the desired space

page_text: between two lines of writing on carrying back the tracer & marker pre-
paratory to writing another line, and for other incidental operations.
The arrangement may be briefly stated as follows:-Upon a suitable desk
or table a standard is erected, the base of which is so formed that with the
table an opening is left through which a plate or tablet, to which the paper is
secured, can on the plane of the desk and on suitable ways move under it
when the tablet is acted upon by suitable devices to draw it certain distances,
to secure & release it in order to allow regular and successive lines of writing
to be inscribed upon the paper by the pen & other incidental operations.
This pen or marker is connected to a style or tracer by rods or lovers of
different lengths, portions of which form a parallelogram in whatever direction
moved when the stylus is working.
This writing apparatus is attached to the desk by a universal joint formed
of a pivotted upright shaft, supported by the stand before referred to, in con-
nection with a joint, by which one of the long levers is attached to said
shaft, so as to turn itself on its axis; the other long lever is jointed or
hinged to said lever, and has attached to its other end the stylus or tracer.
Of the other levers forming the paralellogram, the shortest, about one-fifth of
the length of the second long lever, or any other desired proportion, is jointed
or hinged to the first lever; while the other, jointed or hinged to the second
long lever, is sufficiently long to form a junction & joint with the shortest
lever. At this junction the pen is secured. A wheel or other device may act
to support these levers and enable them to move easily.
Also, in the construction, of a pen to be used in connection herewith, or for
other purposes. This is of the fountain kind, fed by a valve oponed by the
pressure of the pen on the paper, and closed by a spiral spring in the tube
within it.
17.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Charles Thurber in the Great Seal Patent Office on the
26th December 1857.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, CHARLES
THURBER, of the City and County of Worcester, and State of Massachusetts,
United States of Americh, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Lefters
Patent, bearing date the Twenty-seventh day of June, in the year of our Lord 3
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven, in the twenty-seventh year of Her
30

page_text: reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me,
the said Charles Thurber, Her special licence that I, the said Charles
Thurber, or my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as
I, the said Charles Thurber, or my executors, administrators, and assigns,
should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all
times thereafter during the term therein expressed, should and lawfully might
make, use, exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "AN
IMPROVED KALIGRAPH OR WRITING MACHINE FOR WRITING AND SIMILAR PUR-
POSES," upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said Charles Thurber,
or my executors or administrators, by an instrument in writing under my,
or their, or one of their hands and seals, should particularly describe and ascer-
tain the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same was to be
performed, and cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office
within six calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said
Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Charles Thurber, do hereby declare the
nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be per-
formed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement, reference being had to the Drawings:-
Figure
1 shews the plan of the apparatus.
2
3
4
"
"
5
"
6 & 7
"
an elevation of the back side.
a side view of the tablet.
a section of the fountain pen.
another arrangement of the fountain and pen.
variations in the arrangement for regulating the move-
ment of the tablet.
The same parts are indicated by the same letters.
The application of machinery to the purpose of writing, or enabling a person
to give their thoughts a permanent form by the use of type or by a pen
receiving the motions to form similar letters, has at various times been made,
and also the use of two or more pens to produce duplicates, &c. of one's
writing. My Invention differs essentially from these; from the former in always
giving the peculiar form of making and connecting the letters called the style
of the person's writing, and doing this so faithfully that it can be recognized
to the minutest particular; and from the latter in allowing the writer to form
large letters therein, being adapted to a large class who, from debility or other
cause, cannot command the motions of the fingers, or carry the hand steady
enough to form a small hand, or who may have lost their fingers, &c., even

page_text: the hand, enabling them to write a small clear hand with facility; the motions
being given by the arm or other means, each letter in writing being formed
by the motions made by the operator transferring them to the paper with
accuracy simultaneously with their production.
In constructing my Invention, A represents the desk or table, with the piece
B firmly secured to it; said piece B being elevated in its central part suffi-
cient to allow the tablet C, with its paper or book, to pass between it and the
desk, and having a standard D to support the shaft of a screw E, forming a
centre or pivot for the upper end of the stem F, whose lower extremity is
pointed, and rests in a conical cavity in B, or is pivotted therein. G, H, I,
and J are light tubular rods jointed together as at N; G and H being
equal, and I equal to their short parts, and J to the long, or they may vary
a little, though in such case the exact proportion of the writing to the
movements of the writing to the movements of the stylus is altered. I may
be of any desired proportion of G, though I prefer one-fifth or thereabouts.
G is jointed in the stem F, so as to turn on its own axis, and is supported
by the brace K, Fig. 2; or instead of said brace, a light wheel may be placed
on its middle part to serve the same purpose. At the joint of I and J is
made a cavity, to place the pen to be held by the screw L; and in the end of
His a similar one for the stylus M, held by a similar screw. C is the tablet,
on which the paper or book is to be placed, sliding on two ways P, Q. An
end view is shown in Fig. 2, and a side in Fig. 3. R, R, are two rods, with
pieces R¹, R', attached to them; said pieces turning on screw pins, and
having springs O, O, to hold them in place, as shewn in Fig. 3; said screw
pins passing into nuts on the inside of the side of the tablet, so as to be
adjustable in the slots to different lengths of paper; near the bottom of the
tablet C, on the under side, is a stud S, to which the cord T is fastened, said
cord passing around the guide pulley at U, and thence to the ratchet wheel
V, to which the other end is fastened; a groove or recess being made in A for
the end of the stud, cord, pulley, and a part of the ratchet wheel; the wheel
V is operated by the picco W, with its spring catch ✗, said piece being
moved by the lever Y, which is pivotted at one end, and at the other Y' has
a stud rising to a level with the plane of motion of the rod G, and the spring
Z presses the lever to place shewn in Fig. 1, the guard A¹ controlling its
amount of motion. B' is a spring stop, to prevent the backward motion of
the ratchet wheel; C is a releasing lever, to release both catch N and stop
B¹ from the ratchet wheel, to allow the tablet to be returned to place. Mis
a stylus, to be grasped by the hand and moved by the operator.
The pen, a section of which is shewn at Fig. 4, is of the class of self-

page_text: supplying or fountain pens, and consists of a tube D', with a valve E' at its
bottom, to which is attached the pen F, a side view of which is shewn at G',
showing the cavities and split, and a cross section at the place indicated by the
dotted line, as shewn at H'; a rod J' is attached to or rests on the valve; and
extends up into the upper part of the tube, in which is placed a spiral spring
to keep the valve closed, and below this a joint is made to unscrew to supply
the ink to the tube or fountain. Another plan of arranging a reservoir, with
the pen to have a large supply, is shewn in Fig. 5, which is calculated to
allow the reservoir to rest on the rod I when the pen is in place. It is plain
that the same principles of operation may be used in many different arrange-
ments of the parts and their proportion, and also that some parts may be
considerably varied without departing from my Invention.
One of these variations may be made in the arrangement for regulating the
movement of the tablet, as shewn in Figs. 6 and 7, and may be described as
follows: The ratchet or cord wheel V is placed in the middle of the table,
whose top A is made to turn on a standard A. Y' is a plate carrying the
catch, and has a stud on its under side, for which a recess is made in the
table to allow it to be moved when the table is still, and a spring Z is used to
throw the catch Y back after it has turned the ratchet. The ratchet wheel
V is made open with arms, as shewn in Fig. 6, to allow a pin Y³ to be put
into the plate Y', to fasten it to the standard; and a spring As, fastened to the
table, bears on the ratchet wheel to keep it in place, yet allow it to be turned
either way by a little force. When the pin Y' is in the plate Y¹ holds to the
standard A³, while the table at the will of the operator can be turned towards
his left until the ratchet. wheel passes the catch Y¹ one notch, which, when
the table is moved to the right in order to begin a new line, turns the ratchet
wheel and moves the tablet. If preferred to use the table without turning it,
the pin Y³ is withdrawn from Y', and may lay in the ratchet wheel, and the
arm of the lever Y' may be used as in the former plan, that is, either by hand,
or a stud may be put in it to be moved by the "rods."
Having thus described the operation of this variation, although out of its
natural order, I will now describe the manner of operating the entire apparatus,
viz:-In operating the writer places the paper or book on the tablet C, the rods
R, R, holding it in place, the pen is put in, and its tube or fountain supplied
with ink, the stylus then traces an imaginary letter on the line L', W', or
writes along that line on a scale about five times. as large as he wishes to
make the writing on the paper. The pen being adjusted so that when the
stylus rests on the desk the pen is pressed so as to open the valve through
which the ink flows into its cavities and point. The form of this point is such

page_text: that it makes a fair line in any direction when held perpendicular or nearly
so. The motions given the stylus are reproduced by the pen on the paper
along the line N¹; O, and when the line is complete the operator lifts the
stylus so as to raise the pèn from the paper, and brings it back to place of
beginning, and then pushing Ywith the rods moves the ratchet whoel.one
notch; or.. if the arrangement is upon the plan herein-before mentioned as a
variation, then operating it as there described, thus drawing up the tablet the
distanco of the space wanted between the lines, and all is ready to write a
second line, passing the stylus along the same line as at first; and when the
writing is finished or the paper full, the releasing lover C' in Fig. 3 is moved
a little towards the operator, or the catch Y, in Fig. 6 is withdrawn,.so that
in either case the ratchet wheel is released to allow the tablet to be withdrawn
and the paper removed..
"Any stylo of flourishing, figuring, or drawing made by the. stylus. is accu-
rately copied or reproduced on a small scale-at-the tablet.; .the movement.of
the stylus being large and free adapts it peculiarly to persons of a nervous
temperament, who, with the infirm or even the blind, .are enabled to write
with great facility after short practice, the. fatigue, of writing. with it. being
much less to many persons than with the.common. pen.
Having now.described my Invention and its advantages, what I claim under
the herein-before-in-part recited Letters Patent is,
i
I do not wish to bo understood as making claim broadly to. the combination
of two pens or markers by. levers of equal length and jointed rods, and these
features combined with a table or desk: by universal joints, as .such combina-
nation has long been known and used in an instrument termed-polygraph, for
writing two exact copies simultaneously, and. has been entirely superseded.by
the copying press for taking impression copies, and the mode of operation
resulting from the said combination is substantially different.from my Inven-
tion, and could not produce the result for which my said Invention was designed.
Nor do I wish to be understood as making claim to the combination of a
stylus or tracer with a pen or maker by levers of different lengths con-
nected by jointed rods, as such a combination has long. been known and
employed as a pantograph for copying. drawings so as to reproduce them on
an enlarged or reduced scale, and could not alone achieve the purpose for
which my Invention is designed. But I claim combining a stylus or
tracer with a pen or marker by means of levers of different lengths
connected by jointed rods, substantially as described, that the pen or
marker may follow accurately, but on a reduced scale,. all the movements
imparted to the stylus or tracer, in combination. with the. connection of

page_text: this mechanism with a desk or table by means of an universal joint,
substantially as described, to give freedom of motion in all directions to
the stylus or tracer, and to the pen or marker, whereby a person can write
the usual sized characters by tracing characters of a large size, as set forth.
I also claim the stylus or tracer and the pen or marker combined, sub-
stantially as described, with the apparatus or its equivalent for shifting the
paper, whereby the paper is shifted to the distance equal to the space between
two lines, by carrying back the stylus or tracer preparatory to tracing another
line, substantially as set forth.
In witness whereof, I, the said Charles Thurber, havo hereunto set my
hand and seal, on this Ninth day of Septr, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven.
Witness,
JAMES G. ARNOLD.
CHARLES THURBER. (L.S.)