Samuel Hopkins (December 9, 1743 – 1818) was an American inventor from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, On July 31, 1790, he was granted the first U.S. patent, under the new U.S. patent statute just signed into law by President Washington on April 10, 1790. Hopkins had petitioned for a patent on an improvement “in the making of Pot ash and Pearl ash by a new Apparatus and Process.”
The patent was signed by President George Washington, Attorney General Edmund Randolph, and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. The other U.S. patents issued that year were for a new candle-making process and Oliver Evans’s flour-milling machinery.
The first patent bears a United States seal and the signature of President George Washington himself, but it differs from modern patents in other ways–like beginning with a salutation. “Too all to whom these Presents shall come, Greeting,” it begins.
Beyond that, the patent describes a new process for making potash and pearl ash patented by Samuel Hopkins of Philadelphia. “Potash and pearl ash were important ingredients in making glass, china, soap and fertilizer,” writes Randy Alfred for Wired.
Potash was also an important ingredient in saltpeter, which was in turn an ingredient in gunpowder–an important substance during the revolutionary years. Pearl ash, a more refined version of potash, was briefly also used a pre-baking soda food leavener, writes food history blogger Sarah Lohman. They were made by burning hardwood trees and soaking the ashes. Hopkins’s new process, which involved burning the ashes a second time in a furnace, allowed more potash to be extracted.
According to en.wikipedia.org; invention.si.edu; smithsonianmag.com. Source of photos: internet
