Benjamin Banneker: Clockmaker, Astronomer and Surveyor of Washington's Boundary

Benjamin Banneker Park, 429 L'Enfant Plaza SW, Washington, D.C. NPS.

Every monument and memorial on the National Mall has a link to Black history, even where it is not in plain sight: the Tuskegee Airmen at the World War II Memorial, Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial. When a ranger at National Mall and Memorial Parks told a session of teachers in the summer of 2022 about another such link, it was new to many of them. It is the story of Benjamin Banneker, an eighteenth-century free African American scientist with several ties to the Mall and to what schools teach.

The clock

Banneker studied mathematics and science, astronomy among them. In 1753, at 22, he built one of the first clocks in the United States. Americans then told time mostly by sundials and pocket watches. Banneker took a pocket watch apart and studied it, then used observations and calculations to design a clock made of wood, carving each piece by hand. It kept very precise time, ran for more than 40 years, and made him famous.

Surveying the capital

In 1791 the surveyor Andrew Ellicott hired Banneker to help fix the boundaries of the new national capital, Washington, D.C. For 3 months Banneker watched the sky from Jones Point in Alexandria, Virginia, and kept records of what he saw; Ellicott used his observations to begin setting boundary stones around the new city. It was the farthest Banneker ever travelled from his home and farm. The National Park Service tells more in Benjamin Banneker and the Boundary Stones of the District of Columbia.

The almanac and Jefferson

Back home, he returned to his farm and to an almanac: a guide for farmers that predicts the weather and gives advice and calculations. Banneker's also carried wise sayings and quotations, many of them answering the belief, common among white people, that a Black man could not be a good scientist or mathematician.

Thomas Jefferson was one of those who held Black people inferior; his book Notes on the State of Virginia insulted and demeaned African Americans. Banneker set out to prove him wrong. He sent Jefferson a copy of the almanac as evidence, with a letter asking him to change his mind and to lead the country in ending slavery. Jefferson praised the almanac and shared it with a friend, but never responded to Banneker's plea to recognise his equality. Banneker went on publishing almanacs for several more years.

The title page of Benjamin Banneker's almanac for 1793. National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian.

Banneker lived until 1806. Days after his death his house burned down, and many of his possessions, the famous clock among them, were lost. Copies of his almanacs survive.

Visiting and learning more

• A memorial to Banneker near the Wharf in Southwest Washington is cared for by National Mall and Memorial Parks. The rangers suggest that students do as he did: look up at the sky, and record what they see in a notebook.
• The pages of the 1793 almanac can be viewed at the Smithsonian Transcription Center, where members of the public typed them out.
• Banneker's letter to Jefferson and Jefferson's reply, from the National Archives.
• The Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum in Catonsville, Maryland, on land Banneker owned, has gardens, trails and a reconstructed cabin.

Sources

• National Park Service, National Mall and Memorial Parks, "NAMA Notebook: Benjamin Banneker." https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/nama-notebook-benjamin-banneker.htm
• A photograph of the park's information panel, which reproduces a U.S. postage stamp of Banneker, is not reproduced here.