Illinois State Library

Abraham Lincoln's Patent

"The patent system . . . secured to the inventor, for a limited time, the exclusive use of his invention; and thereby added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius, in the discovery and production of new and useful things." — Abraham Lincoln, Second Lecture on Discoveries and Inventions, Jacksonville, Illinois, February 11, 1859.

Drawings for Abraham Lincoln's Patent

On May 22, 1849, Abraham Lincoln was granted Patent No. 6469 by the U.S. Patent Office (PTO) on a device for "Buoying Vessels Over Shoals." As noted by PTO, Lincoln's "invention consists of a set of bellows attached to the hull of a ship just below the water line. On reaching a shallow place, the bellows are filled with air and the vessel, thus buoyed, is expected to float clear."

Although the device was never actually manufactured, Abraham Lincoln remains today as the only United States President to hold a patent. A scale model of the invention is on display at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History.

To access and view PTO's full-page images, you must download and install a TIFF image plug-in (viewer) that supports G4 compression. Instructions for obtaining and using a free plug-in from different vendors are provided on PTO's "How to Access Full-Page Images" Web page at:

http://www.uspto.gov/patft/help/images.htm