Maritime Patent Models

Almost 10,000 patent models reside in the Smithsonian’s collections. About 70 of them demonstrate marine inventions from the 1770s to the 1950s. These watery innovations offer a glimpse of the ways that inventors, particularly in the nineteenth century, sought to overcome the many challenges Americas encountered working and traveling on the water.

The vital importance of maritime commerce to the nation in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries created a fertile environment for maritime innovation. Spurred by the potential economic benefits, inventors sought faster and surer ways to deliver people and cargo across the ocean and over the nation’s expanding network of inland waterways. They sought ever more efficient and powerful engines, paddle wheels, and steering systems. They looked for hitherto unknown systems to make ships stronger and build them faster. They devised a mind-boggling array of boats, rafts, buoys, garments, and floating furniture to preserve lives from shipwreck.

People from all walks of life held patents in nineteenth-century America. Because anyone could create an original invention and receive patent protection for it, the patent process was celebrated as a unique part of America’s democracy.

Mechanical engineer Frederck Sickels devoted his career to improving steam engines and advancing their use at sea.
Description
Mechanical engineer Frederck Sickels devoted his career to improving steam engines and advancing their use at sea. He was particularly interested in developing steam-assisted steering, a topic dear to many inventors as ships became larger and heavier through the middle of the nineteenth century. This patent model demonstrates Sickels's idea for a steering apparatus where steam pressure in a pair of cylinders would both control the side-to-side motion of a vessel's rudder but also hold the rudder stationary against the force of the surrounding water.
date made
1853
patent date
1853-05-10
patentee
Sickels, Frederick E.
inventor
Sickels, Frederick E.
ID Number
TR.252595
catalog number
252595
accession number
49064
patent number
9,713
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1920
ID Number
TR.337083
catalog number
337083
accession number
1978.2282
This patent model accompanied John Howarth’s patent application that received patent number 117,290 on July 25, The patent describes a process for extracting sulphate of lime (gypsum) from salt brine (concentrated sea water) by evaporating the brine and then superheating it.Curre
Description
This patent model accompanied John Howarth’s patent application that received patent number 117,290 on July 25, The patent describes a process for extracting sulphate of lime (gypsum) from salt brine (concentrated sea water) by evaporating the brine and then superheating it.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1871
patent date
1871-07-25
patentee
Howarth, John
inventor
Howarth, John
ID Number
1999.0086.01
catalog number
1999.0086.01
accession number
1999.0086
patent number
117,290
Alexander M. Wellens received patent number 2,803,841, on August 27, 1957 for his design of a telescoping gangway. During World War I, the U.S.
Description
Alexander M. Wellens received patent number 2,803,841, on August 27, 1957 for his design of a telescoping gangway. During World War I, the U.S. Navy began a Beneficial Suggestion Program that encouraged its civilian employees to propose workplace improvements in exchange for cash awards. Wellens was an employee of a U.S. Naval Station in Seattle, Washington, and entered his gangway into the suggestion program in 1948. This is the model the station's sheet-metal shop built to demonstrate his idea.
Wellens's innovation was to anchor the gangway's ends to both deck and pier, with the result that the plank would extend and contract automatically as the ship rose and fell on the tide. This helped obviate the harsh angles at high and low tide that created hazardous working conditions.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1957
patent date
1957-08-27
patentee
Wellens, Alexander M.
ID Number
1991.0555.01
catalog number
1991.0555.01
accession number
1991.0555
patent number
2803841
Joseph Francis of New York (1801–93) made a name for himself in the 1840s and 1850s manufacturing light and sturdy corrugated-iron lifeboats and other nautical gear. This 1841 patent model shows his design for a wood or metal boat fitted with airtight copper tanks.
Description
Joseph Francis of New York (1801–93) made a name for himself in the 1840s and 1850s manufacturing light and sturdy corrugated-iron lifeboats and other nautical gear. This 1841 patent model shows his design for a wood or metal boat fitted with airtight copper tanks. These tanks were to be charged with gas or air to provide buoyancy and, in an emergency, would work in conjunction with several holes through the bottom of the boat. When the boat started taking on water in rough seas, the holes would be opened. That action, combined with the buoyancy of the tanks, would permit drainage.
The well-known inventors of mid-19th-century America—Elias Howe, Cyrus McCormick, and Samuel F. B. Morse—were celebrated as national benefactors. Aspiring inventors regarded applying for a patent not just as a key step on the road to potential wealth, but as a patriotic duty—a contribution to the country’s betterment and future. Solidly within this style, Joseph Francis confidently called his buoyant boat the “great American life boat.” He declared with pride that “the model and application of the buoyant power which I now claim . . . is the best and safest for life boats and all other boats and vessels . . . it is different from and an improvement on all former invention by me and any other person . . . .”
In fact, the 1841 patent represented by this model is but a minor alteration to his first patent, an 1839 design for a double-bottomed boat fitted with buoyant air cylinders. His second attempt simply added additional tanks to the boat’s ends and flattened the bottom of the hull to enable it “to sit upright when left by a retiring surge upon a rock bar or beach, where other modeled boats would be upset.”
Date made
1841
patent date
1841-03-26
patentee
Francis, Joseph
inventor
Francis, Joseph
ID Number
TR.308542
catalog number
308542
accession number
89797
patent number
2,018
This model accompanied Theodore R. Timby’s patent application for "a new and useful Apparatus for Raising Sunken Vessels and other Submerged Bodies" that received patent number 2,572 on April 21,1842.
Description
This model accompanied Theodore R. Timby’s patent application for "a new and useful Apparatus for Raising Sunken Vessels and other Submerged Bodies" that received patent number 2,572 on April 21,
1842. The device is comprised of a pump that supplies air though a wire- reinforced leather hose to a submerged chamber, which inflates to lift a submerged item to the surface. Timby did not claim to invent the use of an air chamber to provide lift; his innovation was in shaping his "air vessel" like an inverted cone with a dome on top. Furthermore, because the object to be raised would be secured to a ring on the air chamber's lower end, he prevented the weight of the object from deforming the chamber or ripping the ring loose by suspending the ring from chains run up and over the body of the chamber. The air vessel was to be constructed of thin copper, as the model is. The pump, although beautifully modeled, was to be simply an "ordinary air pump," and did not incorporate any innovations by Timby.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1842
patent date
1842-04-21
inventor
Timby, Theodore R.
ID Number
TR.308543
accession number
89797
catalog number
308543
patent number
2,572
This patent model represents Harvey Fowler's 1871 "Improvement in Propulsion of Canal Boats," that received patent number 121,712 on December 12, 1871.
Description
This patent model represents Harvey Fowler's 1871 "Improvement in Propulsion of Canal Boats," that received patent number 121,712 on December 12, 1871. The patent describes a process wherein a pronged foot below the boat is brought into repeated contact with the bottom of a canal through the action of a complex assembly of weighted levers, elastic bands, and hinged connecting arms.
In September 1870, Harvey Fowler, a clerk in the U.S. Treasury Department's Bureau of Statistics, patented a "Mechanical Hand-Motor," an arrangement of weighted pendulums and coiled springs meant to give "motion to machinery, or to the driving-wheels of a car or carriage." In December 1871, Fowler received a patent for a marine application of his motor, the "Hand Propeller for Canal Boats." Harvey also received patents 121,713 and 121,714 for further improvements in the propulsion of Canal Boats.
Fowler continued to think about the use of weights and levers to generate mechanical motion over the next decade. In May 1880 he took out a want ad in the Washington Post. "Perpetual motion machine now in operation...partner wanted," it read. A curious reporter showed up at Fowler's workshop, 633 F Street, N.W., to investigate, and his visit gives us an unusual portrait of the inventor. He "was evidently an old man, although a fresh, unwrinkled, almost boyish face gave him a youthful appearance, while the old-fashioned, broad-brimmed hat and the black clothes shining with age imparted a Quaker-like air of honesty and respectability. His voice, mild and gentle, confirmed these impressions and when he talked he fumbled in a tremulous fashion among the tools and scraps on his work table." The advertised perpetual-motion machine was "a mass of jointed sticks running in all directions....Here and there is a wheel and then two pieces connected by rubber bands." It was not working during the reporter's visit. Fowler "briefly explained how it would work when it was right and the possibility seemed to give him as genuine satisfaction as if it was running smoothly at that very minute, and the applause of the world was already his." Fowler's inventing came to an end the next year when he was committed to the Government Hospital for the Insane. "His mind has become deranged," the Post reported, "through his efforts to produce a perpetual motion machine."
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1871
patent date
1871-12-12
patentee
Fowler, Harvey
inventor
Fowler, Harvey
ID Number
1999.0086.02
catalog number
1999.0086.02
accession number
1999.0086
patent number
121,714
This brass, steel, and wood patent model accompanied the patent application for Daniel S. Merritt's crank paddle, which claimed advancement over the common steamboat paddle wheel. The application received patent number 89,231 on April 20, 1869.
Description
This brass, steel, and wood patent model accompanied the patent application for Daniel S. Merritt's crank paddle, which claimed advancement over the common steamboat paddle wheel. The application received patent number 89,231 on April 20, 1869. Merritt, a resident of Mount Morris, Michigan, also held a patent for increasing the motion of an engine (no. 81,393; August 25, 1868).
The principle of this invention is similar to that of other steamboat paddles patented in the nineteenth century. Sets of paddles are fastened to a common frame or bar. Using cranks, the paddles are plunged into the water, swept backward, and then lifted clear for another pass, in a manner similar to the action of oars. There is little in Merritt's design to set it apart from the others, except that the depth of his paddles in the water is adjustable, to suit variations in draft of the vessel. Merritt claimed that "no swell is caused by these paddles, rendering them particularly applicable to the propulsion of vessels upon canals," where swells tended to erode the canal banks.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1869
patent date
1869-04-20
inventor
Merritt, Daniel S.
ID Number
TR.308547
catalog number
308547
accession number
89797
patent number
89,231
In 1870, Cornelius Schilling patented the use of an oscillating single-bladed paddle to propel vessels "with ease and facility." The next year he thought better of his inefficient idea.
Description
In 1870, Cornelius Schilling patented the use of an oscillating single-bladed paddle to propel vessels "with ease and facility." The next year he thought better of his inefficient idea. In a new patent application, he disclaimed everything in his first attempt and proposed instead the arrangement of multiple paddles seen in this model. This model accompanied his application for an “improvement in propulsion of canal boats” that received patent number 119,792 on October 10, 1871. The patent claimed that the paddles "are so arranged that they alternate with each other, one set being in action while the other is carried back through the air, and thereby a continuous action of the propeller is produced."
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1871
patent date
1871-10-10
patentee
Schilling, Cornelius
inventor
Schilling, Cornelius
ID Number
1979.1029.02
catalog number
1979.1029.02
accession number
1979.1029
patent number
119,792
This patent model accompanied Frederick Ellsworth Sickels’ patent application for an “improvement in modes of steering vessels” that was awarded patent number 29,200 on July 17, 1860.
Description
This patent model accompanied Frederick Ellsworth Sickels’ patent application for an “improvement in modes of steering vessels” that was awarded patent number 29,200 on July 17, 1860. "The principle and character of my invention," Sickels wrote in 1860, "consists in bringing to the aid of the steersman the power of steam, so arranged as to alternately move and hold the rudder of the vessel in any required position, according to the action of the steersman."
Ocean-going vessels grew heavier and larger during the second half of the nineteenth century, making them increasingly difficult to steer by manpower alone. As the steam engine became more common at sea, many inventors thought to bring surplus steam to the helmsman's assistance.
Mechanical engineer Frederick Sickels (1819-1895), already famous in the 1840s for developing a valve that revolutionized the operation of steam engines, patented a steam steering engine in 1853. By 1860, when he submitted this model to the Patent Office, he had refined the form and details of his device, a process he continued into the 1880s. Sickels's model depicts a ship's helm connected by crankshaft to a pair of steam cylinders. The small handle mounted on the front of the device controls the valves for admitting and venting steam from the cylinders. The traditional steering wheels are provided for control when the steam engine is disengaged. A foot-operated friction brake is mounted below the mechanism.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1860
patent date
1860-07-17
patentee
Sickels, Frederick E.
inventor
Sickels, Frederick E.
ID Number
TR.252596
catalog number
252596
accession number
49064
patent number
29,200
This patent model accompanied William B. Barker's patent for a fog signal that received patent number 216,820 on June 24, 1879. The patent contains a dial, marked off with the points of the compass, on which the operator designates his ship's heading.
Description
This patent model accompanied William B. Barker's patent for a fog signal that received patent number 216,820 on June 24, 1879. The patent contains a dial, marked off with the points of the compass, on which the operator designates his ship's heading. A pedal activated the fog horn that announced both the ships presence and heading. The horn sounded a repeating pattern of three or four blasts. The pattern "long, short, short," for example, would reveal that the vessel was headed on a bearing between north and northeast. "Short, short, short, long" meant a heading between west and southwest.
Collisions in fog led to the loss of many ships and many lives before the widespread adoption of shipboard radar in the 1950s. English sea captain Charles Kennedy commented in 1889, "Each time a collision occurs, the question immediately arises, Can nothing be done to avert these terrible disasters? This has caused many a thoughtful man to make it a subject for study." Kennedy saw William Barker's fog-signal code at an exhibit in Liverpool, England, in 1879. "Being then in command of the White Star steamer 'Germanic,' I was instructed by the company to inspect [Barker's code] and make my report accordingly. I did so thoroughly, and, being convinced of its utility, I strongly favored its adoption." Although Barker's code gained the approval of the British Admiralty and Board of Trade, it was not adopted by any nation as a life-saving measure. "Several codes have since been introduced by others," Kennedy continued, "but they were too complicated, and more liable to cause mishaps than to prevent them." Barker the inventor may be the same William Barker of Hoboken who appears in the 1880 United States Census. A machinist, he was born in Massachusetts in 1841 to English parents; he and his wife Mary had two sons. Although Captain Kennedy refers to him in 1889 as "Captain Barker," the man's seafaring experience is unknown.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1879
patent date
1879-06-24
patentee
Barker, William B.
inventor
Barker, William B.
ID Number
1999.0086.04
catalog number
1999.0086.04
accession number
1999.0086
patent number
216,820
In 1845, Joseph Francis patented the use of stamped corrugated metal to make boats. Through collaboration with the Novelty Iron Works in New York, he began to manufacture lifeboats, military cutters, and coastal rescue craft, along with other marine safety gear.
Description
In 1845, Joseph Francis patented the use of stamped corrugated metal to make boats. Through collaboration with the Novelty Iron Works in New York, he began to manufacture lifeboats, military cutters, and coastal rescue craft, along with other marine safety gear. His sturdy products proved popular, and he sold many to commercial steamship operators, life-saving stations, and the United States Navy. By 1853, strong sales warranted the construction of a dedicated factory at Green Point, New York, where each hydraulic press could turn out parts for 40 boats a day. Francis continually experimented with new designs for his stamping process, and this patent model reflects changes to the shape of his boats’ corrugations that he developed in the late 1850s.
Joseph Francis (1801-93) is best known today for designing an enclosed rescue craft called a life-car, which was extensively used in coastal life-saving stations in the second half of the 19th century. The first life-car he made was used to spectacular effect in the rescue of all but one of the passengers and crew of the immigrant vessel Ayrshire, which ran aground on the New Jersey shore in a storm in January 1850. The Smithsonian preserves that life-car in addition to numerous models and ephemera documenting Joseph Francis’s work.
Date made
1858
patent date
1858-03-23
patentee
Francis, Joseph
manufacturer
Novelty Iron Works
inventor
Francis, Joseph
ID Number
TR.308546
catalog number
308546
accession number
89797
patent number
19,693
This tin patent model accompanied A. John Bell’s patent application for an “improvement in the construction of ships”—awarded patent number 148,655 on March 17, 1874. The model demonstrates Bell's method of constructing ships in detachable parts.
Description
This tin patent model accompanied A. John Bell’s patent application for an “improvement in the construction of ships”—awarded patent number 148,655 on March 17, 1874. The model demonstrates Bell's method of constructing ships in detachable parts. In a vessel built after Bell's principle, the upper deck and a portion of any lower decks would float free if the main hull were sunk in some calamity, "so that when the hull sinks the deck will float upon the water, carrying the passengers and crew with it, and thus saving their lives." Bell also devised a sectional mast that could easily be cleared away in an emergency, to prevent it becoming an obstruction to the smooth separation of the decks; the mast is missing in the model. Ignoring the dangers of exposure, hunger, and heavy seas that often attended the use of lifeboats, Bell claimed that the "advantage of this invention lies in the almost absolute certainty of saving the lives of all on board the vessel, by having such a large part thereof prevented from sinking when the hull goes down."
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1874
patent date
1874-03-17
patentee
Bell, A. John
inventor
Bell, A. John
ID Number
1979.1029.01
catalog number
79.1029.01
accession number
1979.1029
patent number
148,655
This model accompanied Frank J. Fackrell’s Belleville, New Jersey patent application for an “improvement in life-boats” that received patent number 151,767 on September 17, 1873.
Description
This model accompanied Frank J. Fackrell’s Belleville, New Jersey patent application for an “improvement in life-boats” that received patent number 151,767 on September 17, 1873. The model depicts various features described in the patent including adjustable weights hanging in an open well in the center of the boat to fine-tune the boat's center of gravity. Inlet and exhaust tubes run through the lower hull to prevent the water in the well from "impeding the motion of the boat." The 12-person passenger compartment is covered by a watertight deck, through which the passengers' upper bodies project. Around the top of each opening is a rubber safety-dress "in order to keep the water from getting into the boat around the bodies of the passengers, ajd to assist in holding the passengers in the boat.”
Storms, fires, collisions, and rocky coasts have endangered lives as long as people have worked at sea. During the 1700 and 1800s, increased trade and passenger traffic placed greater numbers of people on the water, and better communication made more people aware of the accidents that happened. These trends led to a surge in the creation and use of life-saving devices on both ship and shore. While Fackrell's proposal may be inefficient and impractical, it is an excellent example of the emerging safety consciousness of the time.
Location
Currently on loan
Date made
1874
patent date
1874-01-09
1874-06-09
patentee
Fackrell, Frank J.
inventor
Fackrell, Frank J.
ID Number
TR.325946
accession number
249602
catalog number
325946
patent number
151,767
This patent model accompanied Henry William’s patent application for “a new way to feather the floats of a paddle wheel” that received patent number 189164 on April 3, 1877. Each blade in Williams's design rides on the end of a shaft.
Description
This patent model accompanied Henry William’s patent application for “a new way to feather the floats of a paddle wheel” that received patent number 189164 on April 3, 1877. Each blade in Williams's design rides on the end of a shaft. T-levers at the ends of the shafts carry rollers set into grooves cut into a central, immobile cam. As the wheel rotates, the blades turn as the grooves direct, presenting knife edges to the water when entering and rising, but offering resistance to the water when in the optimal position to push the vessel forward.
While the last generation of ocean paddle-wheel steamships emerged from European and American shipyards in the 1860s, paddle wheels remained the favored means of propulsion for steamers on the shallower waters of rivers and bays until the mid-twentieth century. Consequently, inventors like Henry Williams continued to suggest improvements to paddle wheel efficiency. For most of each turn, a paddle wheel slices ineffectively through the air. Then, when it enters the waves, it wastes energy pressing down on the water. After a brief passage moving the vessel forward, the paddles waste more effort churning the surface as they rise into the air once more. Feathering paddle wheels reduce this waste and, at the same time, cut noise and vibration in the boat. Never universally adopted, feathering wheels with their many moving parts are prone to damage and expensive to maintain. Williams's design, although particularly elegant, is not had no commercial success.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1877
patent date
1877-04-03
patentee
Williams, Henry
ID Number
TR.325944
catalog number
325944
accession number
249602
patent number
189164
This patent model was submitted to the U.S. Patent Office by Francis D. Lee, an architect in Charleston, South Carolina, to illustrate his idea for a shipboard water tank that would float free of a sinking ship if drained in time.
Description
This patent model was submitted to the U.S. Patent Office by Francis D. Lee, an architect in Charleston, South Carolina, to illustrate his idea for a shipboard water tank that would float free of a sinking ship if drained in time. Passengers would cling to its exterior while a “treasure safe” suspended below the tank would save “bullion, mails, and other valuables.” If the tank itself sank, a smaller cork buoy would float out of the turret at the top to “mark the location of the lost treasure.” Lee’s first design of this invention was patented in 1857. This is the model for his revised version, also awarded a patent, in 1858.
The model is made of brass and measures 5” square and 6” high. A collar faced in wood separates the buoy’s square upper portion from its pyramidal lower section. Aboard ship, the square portion would sit exposed on the open deck, while the inverted pyramid would extend below. A strongbox, now missing from the model, would attach to the very tip of the pyramid. In an emergency, crew would stand on the wood-faced collar and hold fast to the rope lifelines. One man would turn a handle on the buoy’s side to open the hatches in the faces of the pyramid and drain the interior of its store of water. A small amount of water would remain in the bottom of the tank to act as ballast. If all went well, the buoy and its passengers would float away from the foundering ship.
In the 19th century, the U.S. Patent Office granted hundreds of patents for a wide variety of lifepreserving boats, rafts, clothing, and other gear. The surge in interest in lifesaving at sea was triggered by an increase in the number of passengers crossing the world’s oceans and by the expanded distribution of print media, which brought shipwreck details into more family parlors than ever before.
Date made
1858
patent date
1858-04-17
1858-04-27
patentee
Lee, Francis D.
inventor
Lee, Francis D.
ID Number
TR.308537
accession number
89797
catalog number
308537
patent number
20,072
This patent model accompanied Abijah S. Hosley’s patent application for a caliper to measure ship models that received patent number 8,307 on August 19, 1851. Vessel construction in the nineteenth century started with wooden models.
Description
This patent model accompanied Abijah S. Hosley’s patent application for a caliper to measure ship models that received patent number 8,307 on August 19, 1851. Vessel construction in the nineteenth century started with wooden models. Built to disassemble into pieces, the carefully shaped models would be taken apart and measured, and the measurements would be used to create full-sized patterns for fabricating the vessel's components. If drawings were created at all, they too were based on measurements from models. Hosley claimed his caliper provided greater accuracy, greater speed, and greater ease of use than ordinary measuring devices.
The ebony and brass model is comprised of two wooden posts attached to form an L. A curved handle projects from the top of the main post. A measuring arm slides along the bottom, its ivory scale and brass straight- edge rest. A second, curved measuring arm, now missing, once slid perpendicular to the secondary post; its headstock is still attached to the threaded rod that once adjusted its position. The secondary post's ivory scale is also missing. Two thumb screws at one end of the device control the measuring arms.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1851
patent date
1851-08-19
patentee
Hosley, Abijah S.
inventor
Hosley, Abijah S.
ID Number
TR.308544
catalog number
308544
accession number
89797
patent number
8,307
Although Joseph Francis is the best-known inventor of lifesaving boats in the 19th century, other people from diverse walks of life developed their own ideas for improving safety at sea. Among these were two fishermen from Peaks Island near Portland, Maine, Alpheus G.
Description
Although Joseph Francis is the best-known inventor of lifesaving boats in the 19th century, other people from diverse walks of life developed their own ideas for improving safety at sea. Among these were two fishermen from Peaks Island near Portland, Maine, Alpheus G. and Abram T. Sterling, who patented their design for lifeboat improvements in 1874.
In the Sterlings’ design, the hold below the boat’s watertight deck was fitted with a rubber “air reservoir,” which conformed to the shape of the boat. A series of “apertures,” or openings, in the hull allowed water into the space around the air-filled chamber. This water-ballast helped the boat resist capsizing while air sealed inside rubber fenders and in a second interior chamber preserved the vessel’s buoyancy. The rubber air-filled reservoir was also meant to prevent the boat’s sinking if it hit an obstruction.
Date made
1874
patent date
1874-12-12
1874-04-21
patentee
Sterling, Alpheus G.
Sterling, Abram T.
inventor
Sterling, Alpheus G.
Sterling, Abram T.
ID Number
TR.325947
accession number
249602
catalog number
325947
patent number
149,891
Pittsburgh steamboat owner and builder James Rees developed a way to reduce the amount of force needed to steer riverboats, an idea he patented in 1882.
Description
Pittsburgh steamboat owner and builder James Rees developed a way to reduce the amount of force needed to steer riverboats, an idea he patented in 1882. In place of the usual practice-attaching a tiller directly to the top of the boat's rudder-he moved the tiller's pivot point forward and its connecting point to the rudder aft, which improved the tiller's leverage and eased steering. This model demonstrates his invention applied to a three-rudder system.
This model was found in the Smithsonian collections in the 1970s. It matches the drawings and specifications for James Rees's 1882 steering apparatus patent, but no information has yet been found to indicate how it came to the museum. Patent Office records state that no model was received for this invention. (And none was required: its application was submitted after models were generally no longer accepted.) Either the patent records are in error, or this was a demonstration model that came to the Smithsonian through Rees's descendants or associates.
It is very likely the tiller arrangement demonstrated in this model was used commercially, as James Rees (1821-89) was an active owner and builder of river steamers, and his firm supplied engines for many vessels on the Mississippi, Ohio, and Missouri river systems. As he described the problem he hoped to solve through this invention, "The ordinary method of connecting the tiller involves the necessity of applying great force to the tiller for the purpose of manipulating the rudder, and often requires the pilot to throw the rudder into the desired position prior to any back movement of the vessel, otherwise it would be almost impossible to manipulate it when backing the vessel." His apparatus, by contrast, worked "with ease in either a backing or forward movement of the vessel."
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1882
patent date
1882-02-07
patentee
Rees, James
ID Number
TR.337075
catalog number
337075
accession number
1978.2282
patent number
253226
Abraham Lincoln had considerable maritime background, although it is usually eclipsed by his political heritage.
Description
Abraham Lincoln had considerable maritime background, although it is usually eclipsed by his political heritage. At the age of 19 in Anderson Creek, Ind., he built a flatboat for $24, loaded it with a local farmer’s produce, and floated it 1,000 miles down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans, where he sold both the boat and its cargo. When he was 22, he was hired by an Illinois store owner to take some goods down the Mississippi and sell them in New Orleans. Lincoln built another flatboat and successfully piloted it from New Salem, Ill. to New Orleans over a three-month period.
In the mid-1840s, as a lawyer in Springfield, Ill., his law partner William Herndon recalled watching Lincoln working on a large boat model with a local craftsman. A Springfield resident recalled Lincoln demonstrating the idea for his model in public. His model embodies an idea Lincoln had for raising vessels over shoal waters by increasing their buoyancy. That idea became patent #6,469 in May 1849—the only patent ever obtained by an American president. After he became president in 1860 and moved to Washington, he visited his model in the nearby Patent Office at least once. He also enjoyed reviewing naval vessels and ideas, and he personally approved inventor John Ericsson’s idea for the ironclad warship Monitor.
Lincoln’s original patent model was acquired by the Smithsonian in 1908 and has left the Mall only once since then, for an exhibit at the US Patent Office. This replica was built by the Smithsonian in 1978 for long-term display to preserve the fragile original.
date made
1978
ID Number
TR.336769
accession number
1978.2284
catalog number
336769
This model represents an 1881 life raft by Frederick S. Allen of Cuttyhunk Island, Massachusetts Made with only a few parts, the raft was easy to use and collapse for storage. It was made of three barrels attached with wood strips in a triangular shape on the top and bottom.
Description
This model represents an 1881 life raft by Frederick S. Allen of Cuttyhunk Island, Massachusetts Made with only a few parts, the raft was easy to use and collapse for storage. It was made of three barrels attached with wood strips in a triangular shape on the top and bottom. In the center there was rope webbing, with three oars included. Although tested, the raft was never used.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1881
patent date
1881-04-24
ID Number
TR.160184
accession number
12246
patent number
240,634
catalog number
160184
This patent model accompanied Henry Higginson’s patent application for "Improvements in the Mode of Building Ships." Higginson, who received patent number 673 on April 4, 1838, thought wooden ships could be made stronger if more principles from "ordinary carpentry" were applied t
Description
This patent model accompanied Henry Higginson’s patent application for "Improvements in the Mode of Building Ships." Higginson, who received patent number 673 on April 4, 1838, thought wooden ships could be made stronger if more principles from "ordinary carpentry" were applied to "the perfecting of naval architecture" without any material increase in their cost or loss of room for stowage.
Foremost in his thinking was the extensive use of diagonal bracing. The rib-like frames that constitute the skeleton of typical wooden hulls extend in Higginson's design only from the keel to the approximate level of the load waterline. Above this point, he specified diagonally crossing timber braces, either placed between short upright ties (as seen on one side of the model), or running between long timber bands reinforced by occasional iron straps (as on the other side). Outside the diagonal braces, Higginson placed multiple horizontal courses of long-grained planking, rigidly fastened together with treenails or bolts and insulated by waterproof paper or cloth. Along the bottom the hull is double planked. Other details less easy to pick out on the model are the double-rabbeted keel, longitudinal ties connecting the floor timbers, and the extensive use of wedges to brace the entire construction together.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1838
patent date
1838-04-04
patentee
Higginson, Henry
inventor
Higginson, Henry
ID Number
TR.308541
catalog number
308541
accession number
89797
patent number
673
Many 19th-century inventors turned their attention to life boats, a large number of them focusing their efforts on simplicity of construction, ease of launching, and imperviousness to sinking.
Description
Many 19th-century inventors turned their attention to life boats, a large number of them focusing their efforts on simplicity of construction, ease of launching, and imperviousness to sinking. By contrast, two Bavarian immigrants living in New York City—George Tremberger, carpenter, and Michael Stein, patterns machinist—focused on the “comfort, convenience, and safety of the passengers.” Their main innovation was to design the boat as a cylinder in which the cabin rolled independently from the overall motion of the boat. A geared wheel inside allowed the crew to adjust the cabin’s tilt by hand or to lock it in place. The inventors also fitted a telescoping mast, hand-lever-operated propeller, and external rubber bumpers for increased buoyancy.
This is a cutaway model of Tremberger and Stein’s idea. It shows seats and benches running lengthwise in the interior of the cabin. A wheel inside turns a gear that keeps the inner cabin from rolling as the outer hull rolls in the sea. Four hatches on deck slide open for access. The telescoping mast with sail can be operated from inside, while two interior levers activate the propeller. There is also a steering wheel forward connected by a line to the rudder.
Date made
1879
patent date
1879-01-28
patentee
Tremberger, George
Stein, Michael Joseph
inventor
Tremberger, George
Stein, Michael Joseph
ID Number
1978.2282.06
catalog number
1978.2282.06
accession number
1978.2282
patent number
211,807
The inventor Joseph Francis (1801-93) was best known for developing corrugated-iron lifesaving boats.
Description
The inventor Joseph Francis (1801-93) was best known for developing corrugated-iron lifesaving boats. This 1841 patent model reveals his ideas about a new method for constructing boats made of wood.
Trade and communication in 1840s America relied heavily on waterborne transportation, and boat building was an important related industry. With this invention, Joseph Francis sought to reduce the cost of constructing boats by simplifying the process. He proposed setting up a reusable frame over which very narrow planks would be bent to form the hull. The planks would be fastened together by bolts or nails driven through their edges, and no complicated joinery was to be done where the curves of the hull converged at bow and stern. “Ordinary workmen and machinery” could build this simple boat, he wrote. It would save on material, as none of the planks would overlap, and it would not require caulking, “as the narrow planking is drawn so closely together by the . . . nails . . . .” Finally, Francis claimed that the boat’s metal fasteners, buried between the planks, would not be likely to corrode and loosen the structure. Francis may have used this technique in his own boat works, but it was otherwise ignored by the nation’s many skilled boat builders.
date made
1841
patent date
1841-10-11
patentee
Francis, Joseph
inventor
Francis, Joseph
ID Number
TR.308538
accession number
89797
catalog number
308538
patent number
2,293

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