Image provided by: Cape Blanco Heritage Society; Port Orford, OR
About Port Orford post. (Port Orford, Oregon) 1937-19?? | View Entire Issue (Aug. 2, 1940)
First Patent Was Issued 150 Years Ago,- Since Then Uncle Sam Has Granted More Than 2,000,000 to His Inventive Sons Hundreds of Rare Objects Dug Up at Site of Indian Graves. PHILADELPHIA -Several hun dred gold objects of “exquisite workmanship," representing an ad vanced pre-Colombian culture and described as “comprising one of the richest finds ever made by a scien tific expedition working in the West ern hemisphere." have been dug up I at the site of an Indian burial ground in Panama by archeologists from i the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania and will be put on exhibition at the museum According to Dr J Alden Mason, curator of the museum's American section, the Spanish conquerors tn the Sixteenth century obtained “tre mendous quantities" of gold orna ments of this kind but melted most of them down and shipped the metal to Spain. The gold relics, together with Landlubber« from colleges all over the United States (above leftl are lined up In civilian i lolhes In New many pottery and stone objects, York city as thev prepare io participate in a program of training 600 young men for naval reserve ensign were recovered at the Sitio Conte, commissions. A boatload of reservists (center* shown on their way out to the 1!. S. S. Wyoming, the training or Conte-Site. in the Province of ship Right. Robert Morgenthau, son of the secretary of the treasury. Is pictured in formation with other re- Cocle. about a hundred miles west servisla after donning the uniform of an apprentice seaman. of Panama City and 10 miles from the Pacific ocean. By ELMO SCOTT W ATSON i. ..teamed by Western Newspaper Union » ' JULY 31 of this year marks the 150th anniversary of a red letter day on the American calendar. It was not the date of a great military or naval victory nor of a significant event in our social or political history. What took place on that day does not, in itself, seem important. For it was simply this: On July 31, 1790, the United States of America granted to one Samuel Hop kins of Vermont a patent for a method of making “Pot and Pearl Ashes.” But this was the first of more than 2,000,000 patents which have been is sued since that time, and written between the lines of the records of those 2.000.000 patents is the story of the in ventive^ genius which has made possible an economic system capitalized at billions of dollars and has given the United States its position as the greatest industrial and business nation in the world. Find Panama Is Landlubbers V ill Be U. S. Ensigns Bye and Bye Rich in Relics Found With Skeletons. An employee of U Smithsonian institution holds the model of an invention which was an “improvement in the method of lifting vessels over skoals." The patent, issued May 82. 1849. was granted to an inventor from Illinois, named Abraham Lincoln. (Yes, THE Abraham Lincoln.) lected and he was given a salary the destruction wrought by the of $1,400 a year, allowed a clerk fire of 1877, there was such a The American patent system at $500 and a messenger at $72 a great stock of them on hand that had its genesis in that “Yankee year Later Thornton was given their storage became a problem. ingenuity" which began to mani the title of commissioner and re In 1925 congress passed an act fest itself early in the history of moved the office to “Croker’s 2 changing requirements for getting English colonization of North story house” on Eighth street. a patent. Instead of requiring models and America. Nearly 300 years ago Again m 1810 the patent office (in October. 1641) the Massa was moved, this time to a famous keeping them for inspection by chusetts Bay colony granted to hotel. Blodgett’s on E. street, prospective inventors, drawings Samuel Winslow a patent “for a where it shared quarters with the and specifications of all patented inventions are now printed in period of 10 years, for a new post office department. small pamphlets which may be Thornton's Great Service. method of manufacturing salt.” • This was followed by similar Thornton deserves to be re purchased at a small cost and However, grants in other colonies, but membered gratefully by his coun studied at leisure. mainly in New England, to pro trymen for a deed which he per- I thousands of scientists, engi mote the manufacture of iron, formed during the War of 1812. neers, scholars and others visit the building of grist mills and When a British force captured tlie examining room of the patent various other enterprises neces Washington in 1814 and began office in the Commerce building sary for the development of in burning the public buildings, to pore over its records, for here dustry along with agriculture Thornton went to the British ma- | is the largest single source of and trade. jor who was in charge of the scientific information in the world. So, when the new nation was burning in that section of the city, Roll Call of Fame. established, the Foundin’ Fa and pleaded his case so earnestly There the visitor may read thers determined to include is ♦hat the patent office with its rec the contemporary records of in the laws of the land statutes ords and models were spared. ventions which have profoundly winch would encourage invention Twenty-two years later a fot .e affected the course of history, not and protect the inventor. During against which his eloquence only in America but in the whole the Constitutional convention would have been unavailing nul- I world. There he may be remind James Madison of Virginia and lifted his patriotic effort. ed again of the inventors whose In 1836. during the administra fame ranks with our statesmen Charles C Pinckney of South Carolina offered the first pro tion of H. L. Ellsworth, who be and military and naval heroes. posals for patent and copyright came commissioner of patents Beginning with Eli Whitney and laws. These suggestions, which upon Thornton’s death in 1828, a his cotton gm, they include such received the indorsement and fire swept through the patent of names as McCormick and his encouragement of Thomas Jef fice and destroyed the accumu reaper, Morse and the telegraph. ferson and George Washington, lation of 7,000 models and all the Bell and the telephone, Fulton resulted in congress passing an records excepting one book. For and the steamboat, Sholes and act on August 17, 1789. which gov tunately, a clerk had taken that the typewriter. Westinghouse and erned the issuance of both pat book home the night before the the air brake. Thomas A. Edison ents and copyrights and a score of inventions which Jefferson. Patent Examiner. gave to the world more than $3,000,000,000 of new property; During the first session of con and Orville and Wilbur Wright gress, applications for patents and the airplane. were filed by 15 inventors. At the Incidentally, away back in 1822 second session it was decided to a Philadelphia mathematician separate the two “rights" in the named James Bennett presented first law and on April 10, 1790, to congress this statement: the first law, applying only to pat "That your petitioner, having ents, was enacted. Jurisdiction invented a machine by which a over applications under this law man can fly through the air—can was given to the "Commissioners soar to any height—steer in any for the Promotion of Useful Arts." direction—can start from any They were three members of place and light without risk of Washington’s cabinet — Thomas injury; and, whereas, a like ma Jefferson, secretary of state; chine has never been invented in Henry Knox, secretary of war. any country or age of the world, and Edmund Randolph, attorney so as to be applied to purposes general—and the task of admin of practical utility, and it is more istering the patent law was as- . than probable that artificial fly signed to the State department. ing would not for a hundred years So Jefferson became in effect the first patent examiner and his Drawings of the parts which to come, be brought to the same staff for this work consisted of a made up Eli Whitney's cotton gin. degree of perfection, had not your petitioner, under Providence, ac single clerk. Of the 15 applications made dur fire. As the result of this dis complished it; and, as it must be ing the first year, three patents aster a new patent office build evident to all that letters patent were granted. The first went to ing was erected at F and Ninth would be of little use to the in Samuel Hopkins for his method streets, Northwest, and it served ventor m consequence of various of making "Pot and Pearl i as the home of the patent office modifications or improvements Ashes.” the second was for a ma until 1932 when all departments which might be made, and which chine to make candles, flour and of the office were moved to the never would have been thought of meal (a queer combination, that!) ! new Commerce building, erected had not the way first been opened and the third for a method of during the administration of Pres by your petitioner. He therefore ident Hoover, former secretary of solicits a special act of the Con making punches for type. commerce. gress of the United States to se The remaining 12. granted in Incidentally, the patent office is cure to him and his heirs for the 1791, were for the following: Im the father of the department of term of 40 years, or for such provement m distilling methods, agriculture because m 1839 the other term as in their wisdom driving piles for bridges, a thresh commissioner of patents was giv may be deemed just, the right of ing machine, a machine for en the duty of collecting and pub steering flying machines through breaking hemp, a marble cutter lishing farm statistics and for that portion of the earth's at and polisher, a tide mill, a ma many years patent office funds mosphere which presses on the chine for making nails and thresh were used to distribute free seeds United States, or so far as their ing wheat (another queer combi to the farmers. This arrange jurisdiction may extend. By nation!), a method of diminish ment continued until 1862 when granting your petitioner’s re ing spindle friction, a formula for the present department of agri quest, the honor of the invention making an extract of barks, an culture was founded. The patent shall be conferred on the United improved bedstead, a method of office, with the Smithsonian in States. making boots, and a method of stitution also served as the of Bennett's petition was passed using cattle for propelling boats. ficial United States weather bu back and forth between various Under this first act a total of 57 reau for a time. Its duties over committees m congress Then he patents were granted. lapped into the agricultural field was notified that no action would When the seat of government again in 1930 wnjn it was au be taken oi. it because the mem was moved to the new capital on thorized to issue patents for new bers "had so much business of a tlie Potomac, Washington City, sorts of plants in the "Plant Pat terrestrial character before them in 1800 the patent office equip ent" bill for which Luther Bur that they felt this matter above ment, records and models were bank, the "plant wizard" and their reach,” Thereby they loaded on a boat and sailed to Thomas A. Edison did some ef proved themselves "bum guess- Georgetown where they were cart fective lobby mg. ers” indeed—much worse than ed to the new quarters on Penn In 1877 a second fire took its Bennett. He missed it by only sylvania avenue, between Nine toll of more than 200.000 models 14 years. He had said that "ar teenth and Twentieth streets, at a damaged or destroyed and three tificial flying” would not be per coat to the government of $208 yean later the patent office dis fected for "a hundred years to As the patent office grew, it continued its practice of requir come.” became necessary to appoint a ing in ven tors to submit models The date of the Wrights first superintendent to direct its work along with their applications for successful flight at Kitty Hawk, J W Thornton was the man *e- patents. By this time, even with N. C , was 19081 At least half of the gold objects found by the expedition came from 1 of 23 skeletons in three levels of a single grave. Presumably that of a chief, it had five of the large ■ plaques or disks, as well as five smaller disks of thinner gold but also with ornate pictorial repousse ornamentation, and 30 small, thin gold disks with simple designs. Dr Mason pointed out that --'ports of the Spanish Conquest stated that the chiefs wore gold disks in battle. On the skeleton of the same tribal ehief who wore the 40 gold disks lay a pendant of heavy gold more than four inches long, in the form of an ornate animal figure, "probably a conventionalized crocodile." with an emerald about an inch in diameter set in its back. Dr Mason called this "one of the most beautiful and extraordinary gold objects ever found in America.” "The use of precious stones in a setting of gold." he said, "is ex tremely unusual in native American cultures and few examples are known. The emerald is not of great commercial value and was probably obtained in Colombia.” Tms same chieftain also wore wristlets and anklets, including a beautiful pair of cuffs of solid heavy gold seven inches long. Interesting Objects. In the opinion of Dr Mason some of the moat interesting objects found were animals and human figures of carved bone, ivory or rosen. with features such as feet, tails, wings and heads of gold applied to them as onlays. "These,” be said, "are very fra gile though very beautiful and re quired careful museum treatment before exhibition. The ivory em ployed apparently came from the teeth of trie sperm whale or manati ribs. Other typical objects are whale teetn with heads or ferrules of gold.” Hundreds of stone axheads and thousands of projectile points, along with several teeth of a fossil shark . "which were apparently found in the Cretaceous strata and preserved as fetishes" comprised other discov eries of the expedition. The burying place at which the members worked apparently cov ers four or five acres and presum ably was reserved for the nobility, chiefs, their wives and servants. Australians Turning Out Guns for tlie Empire Straining every nerve to aid the mother country in her hour of need, Australian factory workers are toil ing day and night turning out tanks, planes, guan and ammunition that will be used In the defense of Orest Britain. Above is a scene in a Melbourne factory where gun parta are manufactured for shipment by sea to porta in the I nited Kingdom where they will be assembled and turned over to thr defending British army. They’re Ready to Learn American Ways Cleared by FBI Bobcat a* Deer Slayer It Declared Not Guilty SHINGLETON MICH — An experi ment conducted by the Michigan conservation department at the Cu- smo game area near here indicates that the evil reputation of bobcats in the minds of deer hunters may be undeserved S C. Whitlock pathologist in the game division, said he had not found a single instance of a deer being killed by a cat in four years of feeding experiments. He has per sonal knowledge of one instance where bobcats passed through a one- acre fenced plot in a natural deer yard in a swamp and apparently paid no attention to the five deer, two of them fawns. Haf? from th? horror* of war are these three children of Maj. Arthur Lockhart of the British army who landed in New York city recently. They were members of another band of refugee British children seeking a haven in the I nited Stales. Their father is an officer in the King’s Hussars, now fighting for England against thr Axis powers The young refugees are being cared for by relatives in America. Even the Experts Spill Sometimes Carl Byoir, New York public rela tions counsel who was cleared of charge* made by Rep. Wright Pat man of Texas that he had engaged in un-American activities. The de partment of justice dec lared that an FBI investigation “disclosed no evi dence whatever” to support the ak legation. Literary Exile Census Deflates Quip Of Small Missouri Town KING CITY. MO —For 10 y-an King City residents used a catchy quip to reply to questions of visitors regarding the town s population. "It's 1.101 and I m the one," was the stock answer. Now nil that will be changed. The 1940 census count lists the popula tion at 1.100 So many claimed to be "the” one that something had to be done about it—that was the theory of one census taker. Judge Fines Both Drivers After Head-on Collision HAGERSTOWN. MD —Magistrate E H. Miller believed both drivers involved in a nead-on crash. Vic tor B Wolfe, 19 years old. and Her man J. Kuhn. 27, eacn said the other was over the center line In the road when their cars collided. Judge Miller fined them both. Proving that even the moot expert of expert« will «pill once in a while. Ed Htanley takes a header during a practice run for the annual Cstalina-HermossManhsttsn beach aquaplane race at Hermosa beach, Calif. Still upright and riding high is Bob Brown, who won the race three years ags. The event draws the champion aquapiantata of the Pa- cibc coast each year. Hi* long hair put up in a net. Maurice Maeterlinck, famous Bel gian author of “The Bluebird,'* la shown soon after hi* arrival In the ('nited Slates as a war refugee. foL lowinr the German triumph.
