Heading: (Firearms inventor- 1849 Lincoln contemporary with Colt and Winchester ties)
Author: Scientific American
Title: Autograph Letter Signed - 1849 Lincoln era inventor with Colt, Smith, Wesson and Winchester gun associations
Place Published: New York
Publisher:Published by Munn & Co.
Date Published: May 12, 1849
Description:

Autograph Letter Sigend on fine pictorial Scientific American stationery. 1 pp.

To 20 year-old W.C.Hicks: “We take pleasure in advising you that letters patent were issued this week for your improvement in Rail Road switches and will doubtless be forwarded to you from the Commissioners in a few days…” Founded four years before, the Scientific American devoted much early attention to the awards of the US Patent Office, including this #6429 to Hicks for railway switches, and, two weeks later, #6469 to Abraham Lincoln, obscure ex-Congressman from Illinois who had devised a device for lifting boats over shoals. Lincoln would go on to greater heights, being the only patent-holder to become President of the United States; while William Cleveland Hicks, after working as assistant Superintendent of the Colt Gun Armory of Hartford, would patent “a practical mechanism for withdrawing a loaded cartridge” from the chamber of a breech-loading gun – of great value to his future employers, Smith and Wesson and Winchester. 

A bit yellowed; near fine.