Part of the mystery arises from the variety of devices that were grouped under the term "dumb waiter" (today written dumbwaiter). An early 18th-century British article in The Gentleman's Magazine describes how silent machines had replaced garrulous servants at some tables[7] and, by the 1750s, Christopher Smart was praising the "foreign" but discreet devices in verse.[8] It is, however, almost certain that the devices under discussion were wheeled serving trays similar to those introduced by Thomas Jefferson to the United States from France,[9] where they were known as étagères.[9] At some point during or before the third quarter of the 18th century, the name dumb waiter also began to be applied to rotating trays.[4] (Jefferson never had a Lazy Susan at Monticello, but he did construct a box-shaped rotating book stand and, as part of serving "in the French style", employed a revolving dining-room door whose reverse side supported a number of shelves.[10]).