In 1849, future president Lincoln patented not the stovepipe hat, nor his distinctive beard arrangement, but ‘a manner of buoying vessels’ (US Patent No. 6,469). At the time, he was still an Illinois congressman. The invention was never taken up commercially, but there is a model in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.
In the mid 19th century, the former president of the US patented a rather unusual invention...
