Eight score and 16 years ago…
… a future president of the United States was awarded a U.S. patent. Can you guess who?
When people think of early inventors, most think of Founding Father Benjamin Franklin. His most well-known inventions include the lightning rod, the Franklin stove, bifocals, an odometer, and swim fins. Alas, Ben died the same month and year President George Washington signed The Patent Act of 1790. Washington is not, however, the presidential inventor of our title. That accolade belongs to President Abraham Lincoln before he was elected.
Lincoln’s experiences navigating rivers and dealing with stranded boats inspired him to invent a device using flotation bladders to help lift vessels over obstacles, especially “shodals” the Old English word for shoals, or shallow waters. His practical solutions to river navigation problems, such as unloading cargo and using barrels for buoyancy, were based on real incidents during his travels. These innovations reflected his commitment to improving transportation and navigation, which also influenced his early political career.
Lincoln’s Patent—
In his 1860 autobiography, Lincoln describes how he traveled as a teen by flatboat from Indiana and Illinois to New Orleans. During one river trip, Lincoln unloaded cargo from a boat stranded on a milldam near Springfield, Illinois, by drilling a hole in the bow to drain water and plugging the hole once the boat was freed. The boat’s trip continued after the empty boat was portaged over the dam. William Herndon, Lincoln’s law partner, used to recount a story about Lincoln witnessing a steamboat stranded on a shoal. Lincoln asked the captain to instruct the crew to use empty barrels, boxes, and planks to buoy the boat over the shoal, which the crew did after much effort. Isn’t that always the story, the crew does all the work?
You don’t have to be a president to patent an invention. Have an idea for a new product or a novel improvement to a current one? Then you might have a patent idea.