|
The December 15 1836 U.S. Patent Office fire was the first of several disastrous fires the U.S. Patent Office has had in its history.〔Niemann, p. 130 ''History sometimes repeats itself, I said, history sometimes repeats itself. In 1877, a second fire occurred at the Patent Office.''〕 An initial investigation considered the possibility of arson due to suspected corruption in the Post Office, which shared the same building, but it was later ruled out. The cause was ultimately determined to be accidental. This event is considered to be a turning point in the history of the Patent Office.〔 December 15, 2011 was the Dodransbicentennial—175 years from this calamitous event.〕 Local fire suppression efforts were incapable of preventing the damage due to lack of fire personnel and old equipment. Many patent documents and models from the preceding three decades were irretrievably lost. As a result of the fire, Congress and the newly legally revamped Patent Office changed the way it handled its recordkeeping, assigning numbers to patents and requiring multiple copies of supporting documentation. ==History== The fire broke out at 3 a.m. on December 15. At that time the Patent Office was located in Blodget's Hotel, as was the fire department and the post office.〔 '' The Patent Office was housed in the same Washington, DC building as the fire department ...'' ''... but the fire hose was sixteen years old and in such bad shape that it was useless, but no one found out until they had to use it the night of the fire ...''〕 Patent Office employees stored firewood in the basement of the hotel, near where postal employees disposed of the hot ashes from their fires. Sometime after midnight that morning the hot ashes ignited the firewood. The fire department's hose was old and defective and would not funnel the water onto the fire. All 10,000 patents and several thousand related patent models were destroyed.〔Niemann, p. 129.〕 In 1810, Congress had authorized the purchase of the unfinished Blodgett's Hotel from its builder to house the Post and Patent offices. Congress was aware of the fire risk. During the War of 1812, Superintendent Dr. William Thornton, convinced members of the British expeditionary force to leave it standing while they burned the rest of the city.〔〔 It is written that a loaded cannon was aimed at the Patent Office to destroy it. Thornton "put himself before the gun, and in a frenzy of excitement exclaimed: 'Are you Englishmen or only Goths and Vandals? This is the Patent Office, a depository of the ingenuity of the American nation, in which the whole civilized world is interested. Would you destroy it? If so, fire away, and let the charge pass through my body.' The effect is said to have been magical upon the soldiers, and to have saved the Patent Office from destruction."〕 "When the smoke cleared from the dreadful attack, the Patent Office was the only Government building . . . left untouched" from the Burning of Washington.〔 Consequently, a well-equipped fire station was located nearby. In 1820, "Congress authorized the covering of the buildling with a slate roof and the purchase of a fire engine for its protection against fires."〔 Unfortunately, the volunteer fire department lost its sense of purpose and was disbanded.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The Patent Fire of 1836 )〕 In fact, a complete firehouse equipped with a fire engine was just down the street. Although equipped with a forcing pump and with riveted leather hose 1,000 feet (300 m) long (all purchased 16 years earlier by Act of Congress), there were no firefighters.〔〔 Running a bucket brigade to put out the building blaze was totally ineffective.〔〔 The lost items included 168 folio volumes of records, 26 large portfolios of some nine thousand drawings, related descriptive patent documents, and miscellaneous paperwork. The 7,000 lost models included those of various textile manufacturing processes and several models of steam-powered machinery for propelling boats, (including Robert Fulton's original bound folio of full-color patent drawings, done in his own hand).〔 The Patent Office's own model-cases, press and seals, desks, book-cases and office furniture were also destroyed.〔Senate Report by Mr. Ruggles of January 9, 1837, with Senate Bill No. 107〕 The entirety of the library was lost, excepting only "one book, volume VI of the Repertory of Arts and Manufactures (now in the Scientific Library of the Office), which an employee of the office happened to have taken to his home,"〔 against the office's rules.〔 John Ruggles, chairman of the Senate investigating committee, wrote that the lost materials "not only embraced the whole history of American invention for half a century, but were the monuments of property of vast amount, (including) 'the largest and most interesting collection of models in the world.'" 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「1836 U.S. Patent Office fire」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|