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bring the model in the office, and while whittling on it would descant on its merits and the revolution it was destined to work in steamboat navigation.
Although I regarded the thing as impracticable I said nothing, probably out of respect for Lincoln's well-known reputation as a boatman.
The model was sent or taken by him to Washington, where a patent was issued, but the invention was never applied to any vessel, so far as I ever learned, and the threatened revolution in steamboat architecture and navigation never came to pass.
The model still reposes in undisturbed slumber on the shelves in the Patent Office, and is the only evidence now existing of Lincoln's success as an inventor.1
Shortly before the close of his term in Congress he appears in a new role.
Having failed of a reelection he became an applicant for the office of Commissioner of the General Land Office.
He had been urged to this step by many of his Whig friends in Illinois, but he was so hedged about with other
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