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Telescope 23 ABRAHAM LINCOLN By THOMAS I. STARR (Editor's Note) This article first appeared in Vol. Ill, No. 5, of the Detroit Historical Society Bulletin . It isn't a new story, but it is one that seems timely in the month of Lincoln's birth, during a period when interest in him is at an all-time high. We re-print the entire article here, making but one addition: We have included Lincoln's own words as they appear on his application for patent as a preface. Telescope gratefully acknowledges the permission granted by the Bulletin , and Mr. Thomas I. Starr, making its presentation to our readers possible. to. 6469, Improved metked of lifting vessels over skoals. What I claim as my invention and desire te secure by letters patent, is the combination of expansible buoyant chambers, placed at the sides of a vessel, mith the main shaft or shaft C, by means of the sliding spars er shafts D, which pass down through the buoyant chambers, and are made fast to their bottoms and the series of ropes and pulleys, or their eoui-valents, in such a manner that by turning the mam shaft or shafts in one and secured against injury» LINCOLN. Patented fay os, 1849 Abraham Lincoln was an inventor. He created a device for easing river boats over shoals, and was granted a patent. Most biographers of the 16th President mention this, but not one of them has even intimated that the Detroit River had any part in the matter. Perhaps the Detroit River did not have anything to do with it; we could be drawing erroneous conclusions from a definite pattern of facts. But the facts having to do with the patent issued on May 22, 1849, to Lincoln, seem to this writer to hinge on Lincoln's observation of an incident which took place on the shore of Fighting Island in the Detroit River, the morning of September 29, 1848. Lincoln was a riverman of no mean ability. His first dollar was earned with a rowboat on the Ohio. He had piloted flat-boats down the Sangamon and the Mississippi around the time he had turned 21. Shallow waters and their hidden obstructions had taught him the dangers of the shoals. Hadn't he been snagged on the Rutledge mill dam at New Salem, where the village's population turned out to watch him refloat his flat-boat and prevent disaster to his cargo? This happened in April 1831, the first time he saw the community that was later to be his home. Many are the incidents that could be cited to show Lincoln's active interest in river navigation and his efforts for waterway improvements. Perhaps the idea for his single invention had its inception in the Rutledge mill dam incident; if so, he waited 17 years to develop it and make the model upon which the patent was issued. During those years he achieved for himself a reputation as a lawyer and a politician. He served four terms in the Illinois legislature; twice he had been a presidential elector; and he was then the only Whig party member of the House of Representatives from the State of Illinois in the Thirtieth Congress.