LINCOLN ROOM UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY MEMORIAL the Class of 1901 founded by HARLAN HOYT HORNER and HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER ABRAHAM LINCOLN INVENTOR 9 AJI 9 Copyright 1928 by B. G. FOSTER FOREWORD. Rarely indeed does an invention come as a brilliant flash and in perfect form from the brain of its creator. Like other things in this world it is ordinarily a process of evolution. When one looks upon Benjamin Franklin's printing press whose platen was laboriously raised and lowered by a hand screw and compares it with the modern high speed machines that turn out faster than the eye can follow, hundreds of thousands of copies of the modern bulky newspapers, when one looks upon the crude little implements that sent by wire from Baltimore to Wash- ington the momentous question "What hath God wrought ?", and compares with them the subtle instru- ments that transmit vocal and visual messages instantly to the far-flung parts of the world, one is lost in wonder and admiration at the mechanical progress that man has made in the last few decades. And yet it has always been a gradual development. Without the first step, there could have been no last step. The initial milestone must be passed before the thousandth can be reached. And were it not for the lowly genesis there could never be full fruition. All honor then to those who dared the self-satisfied world, who dared the gibes, the ridicule, the good natured raillery of their contented neighbors and friends, to give to humanity a new line of thought or opened a new field of endeavor, whether time proved it to be good, bad or indifferent. For of course many of the ideas and schemes on which inventors have built high hopes, which in their imaginations were to revolutionize the world and they that live therein, proved to be fallacious or were so far in advance of their times as to be then useless. No wheat is produced without chaff. Indeed chaff is as vital to the production of wheat as wheat is to the support and comfort of mankind. And then it is a re- markable fact that those things which have been once classed as worthless waste, something discarded as utter- ly useless, in time become most valuable assets. The cotton seed that was once the bane of the cotton ginner is now a most useful product. The fumes from the coke ovens that once permeated the air with obnoxious odors are now carefully saved for the valuable constituents therein contained. The coal tar residue, that horrible sticky mess that was once the despair of all producers has been found to have locked in its heart and in everlasting form the gorgeous hues of the sunset, the essence of Cey- lon and the drugs of far Cathay. Experience has shown that the desire to invent, to do something novel, to give to the world what no one has ever had to give before, is ingrained in the human soul. It is that innate desire and the resolve to put it into ef- fect that so greatly differentiates humanity from the brute creation. Nor does that longing ever seem to en- tirely leave one. It may be submerged and held back by adverse conditions, but when the opportunity affords, it rises to the surface and when the secret longing coupled with the bravery, demands one to cast the die and launch the scheme upon a waiting world, the United States Pa- tent Office, that great repository of human endeavor and progress, becomes the recipient of the addition to the field of knowledge, in the form of an application for patent. It is not strange then to find among the Patent Office records the ideas and schemes of hundreds of thousands, who have made efforts to subscribe to the material ad- vancement of the world. No one not familiar with those records has any conception of the ingenuity and original- ity that has in times past been displayed by this army of unknown thinkers. It is a fact that no matter how strange a scheme, no matter how brilliant an idea may be developed today, the germ of it in some form, crude and impracticable perhaps, can be found tucked away in some obscure and perhaps ancient patent document, there awaiting modern conditions and developments to make it useful to mankind. And so it has occurred to the writer that a somewhat striking example of the foregoing is found in the early ingenuity and inventive work of no less a person than Abraham Lincoln, Sixteenth President of the United States. m Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://www.archive.org/details/abrahamlincolninOOfost Abraham Lincoln, Inventor Abraham Lincoln, Inventor i. The year was 1831, and it was spring. The brown prairies of Illinois were being rapidly freed from their heavy coverlet of snow. Each little rivulet was adding its tribute of snow water to some larger stream and each stream was ponring its collection into the neighboring river. And there on the bank of the Sangamon, sweeping by in full flood, labored a band of hnsky yonng frontiers- men. During the long winter months they had looked for- ward to the opening of spring, for it meant the beginning of a great adventure. Denton Offutt, local trader and promoter had engaged these young huskies to take a boat-load of produce down to New Orleans. Aside from the attractiveness of fifty cents a day pay and a bonus of $60. was the opportunity of getting beyond the restricted confines of their home country and of seeing the great outside world. Offutt, a great promiser, but a poor producer, had agreed to have ready that spring a boat fully equipped and fitted for the voyage. Brit like so much of Offutt 's offerings, when the somewhat motley crew appeared to embark, there was no boat — nothing to embark upon. Disappointment no doubt reigned supreme. All the plans, all the anticipated enjoyments talked over before the fireplaces in the log cabins those long winter evenings had gone to smash. Was the expedition abandoned and did an angry but secretly heart-sick group of young men plod their way back home across the muddy prairies? Not at all. If 11 Denny' ' by his own industry wouldn't live up to his agreement, they'd help him to. And so with axe and adz and saw and maul a crude but ample flat boat took form. Its possibilities, its seaworthiness and all the mighty problems of ship building were no doubt seriously dis- cussed and determined upon before the campfire after the day's labor was over. In any event, the boat seems to have proven entirely satisfactory to the delinquent Of- futt, for it was duly launched, it successfully floated and was loaded with his produce and wares. On the morning of the departure the little settlement of New Salem nestling on a high bluff of the Sangamon Eiver, below the scene of the boat building operations, awoke to its usual simple and somewhat humdrum tasks. But here was an extraordinary event. A rough but ready and deeply weighted argosy came ponderously into view, riding the swollen river and guided by poles and steering oar in the hands of three young fresh water sailors. Quite naturally word of the novel sight spread and the inhabitants collected to gaze on the passage of this rare craft bound on to the turn of the river and the unknown world beyond. Alas they were to gaze longer than they expected. At New Salem the Sangamon Eiver had been harnessed to a grist mill and consequently across the stream had been thrown a rough dam of stones over which the river in its flood stage merrily and swiftly passed. Whether the navigators forgot or were unaware of the barrier or whether they "figgered" there was enough water to carry them over the obstruction, history sayeth not. But history doth say that when the dam was reached by the boat, the boat was also reached by the dam. Hence the hardy but not particularly skilled mariners were soon concerned with the fact that their vessel had slid partly over and there lodged. Here was indeed a sight for the villagers and a dilemma for the sailors. Inspection show- ed that the bow was well over the dam and out of water while the stern was above the dam with the wavelets dancing over the rim and the racing water boiling men- acingly along the gunwales. It was probably not the first time these hardy young fellows had been suddenly placed on their own resources. And while all might have been equal to the occasion, as usual in time of crisis one quickly came into commanding prominence. A long, lean, gaunt young giant who was later to become well known to the citizens of New Salem under the name of "Abe" Lincoln, took charge of the situation. The following is a contemporary word picture of this young man. "He was a tall, gaunt young man dressed in a suit of blue homespun jeans, consisting of a roundabout jacket, waistcoat and breeches which came to within about four inches of his feet. The latter were encased in rawhide boots." A hasty survey showed no time was to be lost or the boat would fill and sink with all its cargo. Hailing the villagers on shore (among whom was the now anxious OfTutt) a boat was launched and brought alongside the stranded vessel. Into this was piled package and box and bale, leaving however, the barrels and casks. Thus light- ened the boat still tetering uncomfortably on the rocks, was however temporarily safe. Then came the problem of removing the water and getting the boat over the dam. And here was displayed the ingenuity of the gaunt young unknown stripling who had directed and worked power- fully in unloading the craft. The heavy barrels left in the boat were all rolled to the bow that projected beyond the dam and above the water. The front end thus weighted swung downwardly, and the rear end thereby lightened, rose safely above the flood that raced around it, while all the water shipped into the boat over the stern promptly followed the barrels into the bow. Then "Abe" according to the story, bor- rowed a goodly sized auger from the blacksmith at New Salem and proceeded to bore a hole through the bottom of the bow. The water that had run in made haste to flow out through the aperture thus produced and resume its journey to the sea. After the last departing drops trickled through the hole "Abe" plugged it up and with the aid of the water now pushing against the upturned stern, it was an easy task to slide the boat on over the dam, bring her to shore, reload and continue the journey. Very little is known of the details of that long trip down the Mississippi to New Orleans. It probably did not differ greatly from thousands of others of a corre- sponding character. Mark Twain's stories dealing with such life on the Mississippi have become an immortal part of the literature of the nation. No doubt snags and shifting sand bars were encountered and beginning with his experience at the Eutledge mill dam at New Salem, the problem of safely and satisfactorily navigating the shallow inland waters of the country evidently impressed itself on young Lincoln. II. We pass on to a period some seventeen years later. The Hon. Abraham Lincoln of Springfield, Sangamon Necessity The Mother of Invention County, Illinois, had been elected to the National House of Representatives and had taken his seat in Congress. The first session was over and he determined to return to his home by way of Niagara Falls and the Great Lakes. The vessel on which he journeyed apparently was making a normal and uneventful voyage along the lake until she had the misfortune to run aground. It must have carried Mr. Lincoln's thoughts back to his early experiences — the voyage down the Sangamon, the mishap on the dam at New Salem, and probably other near wrecks and delays on the shifting and uncharted mud banks of the Illinois and the great Mississippi. It was not strange then that the Captain's endeavors to re- lease his vessel from the bar on which she struck was of deep interest to Mr. Lincoln. Planks and empty barrels were placed under and around her and after much delay the boat was finally backed off. Through all the preceding years perhaps, the problem had been vaguely revolving in his mind — this constant difficulty of boats running aground with the consequent troubles and delays, and the crude methods and make- shifts used in getting them again afloat. And after all these years, apparently no definite solution of the prob- lem was available. The lake captain of 1848 was no better off then Capt. "Abe", the Mississippi boatman of twenty years before. Something ought to be done and why was not he the man to show the way ? And Mr. Lincoln decided to do it. The next chapter of the story is best given in the words of his law partner, W. H. Herndon, of Springfield, Illinois. "Continual thinking on the subject of lifting vessels over sand bars and other obstructions in the water sug- gested to him the idea of inventing an apparatus for the purpose. Using the principle involved in the operation he had just witnessed (the release of the lake boat), his plan was to attach a kind of bellows on each side of the hull of the craft just below the water line, and, by an odd system of ropes and pulleys, whenever the keel grated on the sand these bellows were to be filled with air and thus buoyed up, the vessel was expected to float clear of the shoal. On reaching home he at once set to work to demonstrate the feasibility of his plan. Walter Davis, a mechanic having a shop near our office, granted him the use of his tools and likewise assisted him in making the model of a miniature vessel with the arrangement as above described. Lincoln manifested ardent interest in it. Occasionally he would bring the model in the office, and while whittling on it would descant on its merits and the revolution it was destined to work in steamboat navi- gation. Although I regarded the thing as impracticable, I said nothing, probably out of respect for Lincoln's well- known reputation as a boatman. The model was sent or taken by him to Washington, where a patent was issued, but the invention was never applied to any vessel, so far as I ever learned, and the threatened revolution in steam- boat architecture and navigation never came to pass." The reason for the production of the model was the requirement of the Patent Office at that time that an ap- plication for patent must be accompanied by a model of the invention. So it is not strange that Mr. Lincoln on returning to Washington for the second term of Congress took the model with him, and we have the following record from Z. C. Eobbins of Washington, D. C, the attorney who represented him before the Patent Office. ' i He walked into my office one morning with a model of a western steamboat under his arm. After a friendly $o tl)t Commissioner of fpattnta. The Petition «f^3C^l. presents. / ,_, ^ '«<- hereby authorise* and empowers fii^ Agent and Attorney, Z. C Robbi.vs, t« alter or modify the within specification and claim as he may deem expe- dient, ami to receive '■'•-' patent ; and also to receive back any moneys which / >-«- nfay be entitled to withdraw, and to receipt for the same. -<. U n ~*z /K-dAl~9&**- 4*jf.cl*2~~<£** *£ On this ♦ S* " day of ^ «-+*,/ V>> ^ f before the subscriber, a & 'cJ Q&***. in and for the said C^ i , ^X personally appeared the within named - &is-\ *v^*-»^-^„. *~J .? * <■ -* v» ■%-*^a