Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 June 1890 — LINCOLN AN INVENTOR. [ARTICLE]

LINCOLN AN INVENTOR.

In Hl* Early Day* He Got Out a Patent for River Boating. Abraham Lincoln was a patentee. A patent was issued to Abraham Lincoln in 1846. It was issued for a device to enable a river boat to relieve itself from a sandbar whenever it should run aground on one. The model was certainly an ingenious contrivance. Abe had evidently made his own model and prepared his own papers. The device was a large bellows-like apparatus made of leather and iron, which would be attached tethe bottom of the guards on either side of the river boat When not in use it was folded and formed part of the guard. His idea was that when a boat was grounded the pilot, by pressing a button, could open air chambers, which in turn would inflate with air the arrangement attached under the guards .to an extent sufficient to raise the boat and. allow it to be driven to deeper water. In his youth Abe was on the rivers in Illinois to a considerable extent, and was familiar with all the inconveniences of river travel, and his invention was the result of spending considerable time on a grounded boat on a sandbar.