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.

Search term: *:* Date: 1850s Clear All

Patent Model for Steering Steam Ships

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

Patent Model, Life Boat

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

Patent Model, Life and Treasure Buoy

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

Patent Model for Hosley Ship's Model Measurer, 1851

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

Joseph Francis Life-Car

As maritime traffic expanded in the early 19th century, especially with the rise in passenger travel, water safety became a top priority for American shipping inventors.
Description
As maritime traffic expanded in the early 19th century, especially with the rise in passenger travel, water safety became a top priority for American shipping inventors. This life-car, patented by Joseph Francis in 1845, was one of the most successful life-preserving devices developed at the time. Buoyant and pod-shaped, the metal life-car was used to rescue shipwreck victims when the vessel was foundering near land. While standing on the beach, a person from a lifesaving station used a cannon-like gun to shoot sturdy lines out to the ship, which would then be tied to the ship’s mast. The life-car was attached to, and pulled, along these lines. Up to four people were bolted into the airtight compartment. They laid flat as they were hauled through the rough waters to the safety of the shore.
This life-car was first used on January 12, 1850, to rescue the stranded British bark Ayrshire. The ship, most likely filled with Irish immigrants fleeing the potato famine, ran aground on a sand bar off the New Jersey shore at Squan Beach, now known as Manasquan. A blinding snow storm made the ocean too dangerous to launch a surfboat, the usual method of rescue, so local lifesavers decided to launch the newly installed, experimental life-car. Although never tested in an actual emergency, the Francis life-car performed as envisioned.
Out of 166 passengers and 36 crew members on the Ayrshire, only one was lost, perhaps needlessly, in the short journey from ship to shore. A male passenger insisted on riding on top of the life-car while his family inside was hauled to safety. He could not hold on and was washed away by the surf. Over the next three years, this device rescued at least 1,400 people on the New Jersey shore alone, as well as countless amounts of valuable cargo. The original, groundbreaking life-car used in the Ayrshire wreck was donated to the Smithsonian Institution by Joseph Francis in 1885.
date made
late 1840s
patented
1845
Life-Car first used to rescue Ayrshire
1850-01-12
Life-Car donated to the Smithsonian Institution
1885
patentee
Francis, Joseph
ID Number
TR.160322
catalog number
160322
accession number
16136

Our collection database is a work in progress. We may update this record based on further research and review. Learn more about our approach to sharing our collection online.

If you would like to know how you can use content on this page, see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use. If you need to request an image for publication or other use, please visit Rights and Reproductions.