Historic Highlights: Lincoln is only president to hold a patent

Abraham Lincoln was a man of many achievements. He’s also the only president to hold a patent.

Lincoln was sailing up the Great Lakes on his way home from Congress in 1848 when he witnessed another steamer that was aground. The scene led Lincoln to develop an invention to float ships off shoals and sandbars. He filed a patent on his idea the following year and remains the sole chief executive to hold a patent.

Wayne Temple of Springfield, who has been called “the greatest living Lincoln scholar,” attributes the invention to Lincoln’s inquisitive mind.

“He always liked to know how machinery worked,” Temple said. “When he was on a steamboat, he’d be prying around below decks, trying to learn how the engines worked. He examined things very carefully in his mind.”

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As Lincoln and his family sailed from Lake Erie into the Detroit River in the fall of 1848, he was in the midst of his sole term in Congress, and 12 years away from the presidency. He was barely a household name in his home state of Illinois, let alone nationally, and faced an uncertain political future.

On his way back to Illinois, Lincoln appeared at a string of speaking engagements in New England before making his way to Buffalo for a journey around the Great Lakes, one of the few transport options in a time before railroads crisscrossed the nation. On Sept. 26, 1848, the Lincolns boarded the 251-foot steamer Globe in Buffalo harbor for the long, slow trip to Chicago.

Built at Trenton in the Detroit River, the Globe had launched just three months before. The vessel measured 251 feet long and could hold 1,300 tons of cargo, in addition to its first-rate passenger service. A Chicago newspaper labeled the Globe as “new and splendid.”

Despite the speed of the Globe, the voyage from Buffalo to Chicago in 1848 normally took seven days. However, heavy seas were a problem, and the Lincolns did not arrive in Chicago until Oct. 6.

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In the early morning hours of Sept. 29, the Globe was steaming up the Detroit River, heading northward for Lake Huron, when she passed the Canada, a steamer that had run aground in the darkness of the night.

“Lincoln stood on the rail of the Globe, watching workmen use planks, barrels, anything they could find to buoy up the Canada,” Temple said. “There were a lot of sandbars in the area, which Lincoln was familiar with since he had been on the Mississippi, and he started wondering, ‘why doesn’t someone invent an idea to buoy up ships when they need it?’”

Temple believes Lincoln’s ideas stretched back to his days in the log cabin village of New Salem, north of Springfield, where he and others had hoped to open the nearby Sangamon River to steamboat traffic. Lincoln’s first experience in New Salem was on April 19, 1831, when a flatboat he was sailing down the Sangamon became stuck on the mill dam at the village.

Ever creative, Lincoln bored a hole in the bow and unloaded enough cargo that the stern rose. As the water poured out, the boat lifted enough to slide over the dam.

Seventeen years later, as he watched the struggles of the Canada in the Detroit River, Lincoln’s mind concocted a plan to float a trapped ship off an obstruction.

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After returning home, Lincoln spent the next month campaigning for Zachary Taylor, the Whig candidate for president against Democrat Lewis Cass of Michigan. Lincoln openly blasted Cass and his record in several speeches. Taylor eventually won the election.

Sometime after Election Day, Lincoln began spending time in a woodworking shop near his Springfield office. There, he created a 4-foot scale model of a ship to illustrate his idea.

Lincoln’s ideas were not just a mechanical hobby, but an attempt at a practical solution. In that era, improvements in river transportation were a pressing issue across the nation in the mid-19th century.

Later that November, Lincoln displayed his model for curious Springfield residents in a large water trough across the street from his law office. One onlooker at the trough recalled that “quite a crowd had gathered as the word had been passed around the streets.”

The gathering “listened to Lincoln’s defense of his invention, gave three cheers and dispersed, much impressed but not fully convinced.”

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Lincoln took his model along as he returned to Washington, obviously with the idea of seeking a patent. For help, he not only enlisted a Washington attorney but also sought Daniel Webster, a former Secretary of State and one of the most powerful figures in 19th-century American politics.

Ultimately, Lincoln paid the application fee of $30, the equivalent of over $1,000 today, and his invention was approved as Patent Number 6469 on May 22, 1849.

An 1849 report lists this “Improved method of lifting Vessels over Shoals,” in which Lincoln describes “the combination of expansive buoyant chambers, placed at the sides of a vessel.” As part of the process, the “buoyant chambers will be forced downwards into the water, and at the same time expanded and filled with air for buoying up the vessel.”

Oddly, Lincoln did nothing to promote his invention or pursue its commercial success, so he saw no profit. Still, the patent remains a fascinating chapter in his life.

“He was certainly proud of that invention,” said Temple. “He not only made a model for the patent application but also built a second one, just for himself, which was found after he died. I think it was one of the prides of his life.

“There were a lot of facets to Lincoln,” Temple said, “and one was the invention. It’s one of the many unique things about his life.”s

• Tom Emery is a freelance writer and historical researcher from Carlinville, Illinois. He may be reached at 217-710-8392 or ilcivilwar@yahoo.com.