UPDATED AND CORRECTED: Abraham Lincoln Tried To Patent Facebook

UPDATE: No. No, he did not. Oops.

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Original story:

Abraham Lincoln. The Great Emancipator. The sixteenth president of the United States of America. Creator of Facebook and social media. Creator of Facebook? And you thought Mark Zuckerberg had to worry about the Winklevoss twins coming after him, try the guy who won the Civil War and who is a world-renowned vampire hunter.

Honest Abe may have lived in a completely analogue, pre-digital era, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a forward thinker with an eye on self-promotion. While visiting the Lincoln Museum in Springfield, IL, social media consultant Nate St. Pierre found a copy of the Springfield Gazette, a fake publication created by Lincoln, that was all about Lincoln, with a very familiar layout.

Profile image in the upper right-hand corner, a series of biographical details, a bunch of random thoughts on people and ideas of the time. Look familiar? It may be printed on paper, but the man who earned his law degree in a log cabin by candlelight basically created the template for a Facebook profile page.

Even better, in 1845, Lincoln attempted to have this type of publication patented. It was denied, so it’s not like Bill and Ted gave Lincoln a time travel lift so he could become the world’s first digital patent troll. But one can only imagine what the face of social media would look like today had that patent been granted. My guess — everyone’s profile image would include beards and stovepipe hats.