17 Facts About Benjamin Banneker

Benjamin Banneker was an American naturalist, mathematician, astronomer and almanac author.

Benjamin Banneker became known for assisting Major Andrew Ellicott in a survey that established the original borders of the District of Columbia, the federal capital district of the United States.

Benjamin Banneker corresponded with Thomas Jefferson on the topics of slavery and racial equality.

Benjamin Banneker became a folk-hero after his death, leading to many accounts of his life being exaggerated or embellished.

None of Benjamin Banneker's surviving papers describe a white ancestor or identify the name of his grandmother.

In 1737, when he was 6, Benjamin Banneker was named on the deed of his family's 100-acre farm in the Patapsco Valley in rural Baltimore County.

In 1791, a letter writer stated that Benjamin Banneker's parents had sent him to an obscure school where he learned reading, writing and arithmetic as far as double position.

Around 1753, at about the age of 21, Benjamin Banneker reportedly completed a wooden clock that struck on the hour.

Benjamin Banneker appears to have modelled his clock from a borrowed pocket watch by carving each piece to scale.

Benjamin Banneker studied the mills and became acquainted with their proprietors.

In 1790, Benjamin Banneker prepared an ephemeris for 1791, which he hoped would be placed within a published almanac.

Some biographers have stated that Benjamin Banneker's duties consisted primarily of making astronomical observations and calculations to establish base points, including one at Jones Point in Alexandria, Virginia, where the survey started and where the south corner stone was to be located.

Benjamin Banneker kept a series of journals that contained his notebooks for astronomical observations, his diary and accounts of his dreams.

Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet, to whom Jefferson sent Benjamin Banneker's almanac, was a noted French mathematician and abolitionist who was a member of the French Societe des Amis des Noirs.

When writing his letter, Benjamin Banneker informed Jefferson that his 1791 work with Andrew Ellicott on the District boundary survey had affected his work on his 1792 ephemeris and almanac.

An obituary concluded "Mr Benjamin Banneker is a prominent instance to prove that a descendant of Africa is susceptible of as great mental improvement and deep knowledge into the mysteries of nature as that of any other nation".

Several such urban legends describe Benjamin Banneker's alleged activities in the Washington, DC, area around the time that he assisted Andrew Ellicott in the federal district boundary survey.