A pen and ink sketch of Colonel Jonathan Williams,
by Robert Fulton, signed with initials and dated 1813.

Set in a square gilt wood frame.

4 3/4 inches wide x 5 inches high. Frame: 10 7/8 wide x 11 1/8 high.

Jonathan Williams (1750-1815), after whom the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn was named, served as the first Superintendent of West Point. He was the Grand-nephew of Benjamin Franklin, functioning as his secretary while Franklin was a commissioner of the Continental Congress to France in 1776. Colonel Williams helped Franklin with many of his experiments sparking his keen interest in science and bringing him into contact with Thomas Jefferson. When Jefferson became President he appointed Williams Inspector of Fortifications and Superintendent of West Point. From 1807-1812, Williams designed and constructed Castle Williams and Castle Clinton on New York City's Battery, making it the first casemated battery in the United States. When Williams resigned from the Army in 1812, he moved to Philadelphia to head a group of volunteers building fortifications around the city. His Philadelphia home, Mount Pleasant, is now a museum. Williams was elected to the 14th United States Congress from Philadelphia in 1814, but died before Congress assembled. Portraits of Williams by Thomas Sully and John Wesley Jarvis are in the collection at West Point.

Robert Fulton (1765-1815) best known as a scientist and inventor of the Clermont, worked his entire career as a miniaturist and portrait painter. A native of New Britain Township (now Fulton), Pennsylvania, Fulton was working as a gunsmith by the age of ten. Moving to Philadelphia in 1782, he designed carriages, and executed mechanical and architectural drawings, before meeting James and Charles Willson Peale and establishing himself as a miniaturist in 1785. Fulton advertised in 1786 in Petersburg, Virginia as a painter of portraits and miniatures, providing hairwork and gold miniature settings. Later that year he left for England to study with Benjamin West, exhibiting at the Royal Academy and the Society of Artists from 1791-1794. For the next twelve years Fulton, supported by a large group of patrons, developed his canal boats, steam boats and submarines; taking trial runs in the Seine. After twenty years, Fulton returned to America in 1806, and in 1807, The Clermont, the first successful commercial steamboat made her maiden voyage from New York to Albany. Though involved in the construction of steamboats for the rest of his life, Fulton continued to actively paint portraits and miniatures. In 1813, he was elected a member of the Pennsylvania Academy. Fulton's self-portrait and a portrait of his wife, Harriet Livingston are in the collection of The New York Historical Society.