In the Noah Webster’s American Dictionary published in 1828, “character” was defined as:  “The peculiar quality, or the sum of qualities, by which a person or a thing is distinguished from others; the stamp impressed by nature, education, or habit; that which a person or thing really is; nature; disposition.”

From the earliest days of the settlement of America, some of the early outposts had at least one person who, as defined by Webster, met the definition of “character.”  This title was usually used to describe someone who was different.  He had most generally distinguished himself from his neighbors by some striking peculiarity or disposition, manner or occupation — in fact, he was one who was thought to be “a little odd!”

During the last half of the 1800s and the first part of the 1900s, in the area that became the Dakota Territory, there were a number of individuals who were trying to develop a “perpetual motion” gizmo.  In the five-state upper mid-west, from 1870 to 1930, there were 2,828 digitized newspapers which contained articles on “perpetual motion.”  The Daily Press and Dakotan (Yankton) of November 6, 1875, was the first South Dakota newspaper to contain an article on “perpetual motion.”

Perpetual motion had been the dream of the inventor or individual who was always tinkering with some weird or strange contraption in an unidentified and secret “hide-away” ever since the first invention of any kind was perfected.  Eventually, there were machines that the inventors claimed would work, without stopping, for an indefinite length of time. Soon, in the patent office of every government in the world there were hundreds of devices for securing this end.

Unfortunately, none of them worked. They all failed the task for which they were created. Since 1775 the French Academy of Science has refused to correspond with anyone claiming to have invented a perpetual-motion machine.  In May of 1896, one authority in the U. S. Patent Office in Washington stated that there were over 1,000 such contraptions in their office for which the inventor hoped success. The British and United States patent office have long refused to expend time or energy on such claims.

Attempts at developing a machine that displayed perpetual motion are as old as the human race.  Although impossible to produce, it has fascinated both inventors and the public for hundreds of years.  The enormous appeal resides in the promise of a virtually free and limitless source of power.  They should have listened to Solomon who said:  “There is nothing new under the sun.”  Folks need to learn that there is “no free lunch.”

The Forest City Press in March of 1912 reported:  “Army Tubbs expects to devote his life to the invention of a perpetual motion machine at his home outside of town.  His wife went home to live with her folks about two years ago.”

With regard to perpetual motion, insanity seemed to keep pace with the times.  Some folks went crazy over the puzzle of perpetual motion.  The mental health hospital was often the final sanctuary of the unfortunates who endeavored to figure out this preeminent of all brain breakers.

The following are some of the one or two line editorials which appeared in the South Dakota newspapers:

• “No first-class insane asylum is without a man who has discovered perpetual motion.”
• “I honestly believe that something bordering very closely upon perpetual motion will eventually be discovered, although every man who talks perpetual motion now is looked upon as an incipient lunatic.”
• “The man who is spending his time and wasting his talents trying to discover perpetual motion, should simply throw down his tools and take out a patent on the small boy.”
• “The small boy’s digestive apparatus is undoubtedly the nearest approach to perpetual motion that the world has yet seen.”
• “A boy is nature’s answer to the claim that there is no perpetual motion. He is a man, minus pride, ambition, pretense, greed and about 110 pounds.  When he grows up he will trade romance, energy, bashfulness, warts and a snag-proof stomach for these other possessions.”
• “When one good turn begets another we shall have perpetual motion.”
• “The man who said there was so such thing as perpetual motion never had a small boy in the family.”
• “Man searches for perpetual motion and woman for a perfectly new cake recipe.”
• “The perfect friendship and perpetual motion are all right theoretically, but they refuse to work.”
• “In passing, we remark that 48 so called perpetual motion discoverers have committed suicide and over 500 have become insane in trying to perform the feat in the past fifty years.”
• “Perpetual motion seems to be a success as a perpetual failure.”

On June 19, 2018, the U.S. Patent Office issued the 10 millionth patent. In fiscal year 2021, a total of 374,006 patents were granted.

On March 10, 1849, Abraham Lincoln filed a patent for a device for “buoying vessels over shoals” with the U. S. Patent Office. Patent No. 6,469 was approved two months later, giving Abraham Lincoln the honor of being the only U. S. President to hold a patent.

 

Author Clarence Shoemaker, originally published in the Gregory Times-Advocate on June 21, 2023