Abe Lincoln's Patent

Abe Lincoln s Patent MISCELLANEOUS EQUIPMENT Miscellaneous I noticed a mention in a magazine article recently about a patent taken out by Abraham Lincoln That was news to me so I decided to go online to check it out At Google Patents www google com/patents I was quickly able to bring up Old Abe’s patent for a “Method To Buoy Vessels Over Shoals” The patent drawings show a system of floats along the sides of a river barge that were designed to lift it off sandbars or other debris if it got stuck I did a little research and discovered that Lincoln got the idea while on a riverboat trip home to Illinois in 1848 His boat got stranded on a sandbar The crew and passengers used loose planks and empty barrels to float the boat back into deep water Soon after Lincoln created a scale model of his idea for a system that could be built onto the sides of existing boats and lowered down into the water when needed Apparently Lincoln displayed a lifelong fascination with mechanical things When he was a traveling lawyer in younger days he would frequently stop at farm houses for dinner Often he would head out to the barn with the farmer and go over every piece of farming equipment asking detailed questions and speculating about whether it could be improved

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