Benjamin Banneker, Surveyor
Behind the panel Benjamin Banneker, Surveyor · series G, Makers.
Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806) was born free in Baltimore County, Maryland, to a family of free Black farmers. He had little formal schooling but taught himself mathematics and astronomy from borrowed books and instruments.
The wooden clock
Around 1753, having studied a pocket watch, Banneker built a striking clock with gears carved from wood. It is said to have kept time for decades and made him locally known.
The federal district
In 1791 Andrew Ellicott was appointed to survey the boundaries of the ten-mile-square federal district on the Potomac. Banneker, who knew the Ellicott family through their mills near his farm, joined the survey for its first months. He worked with the astronomical instruments, taking observations of stars used to establish the survey's starting point and lines. Some of the original boundary stones still stand.
Almanacs and a letter
From 1792 to 1797 Banneker's almanacs, containing his astronomical calculations, were printed and sold in several cities. In 1791 he sent a manuscript to Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson with a letter arguing against slavery and against claims of Black intellectual inferiority. Jefferson replied politely; the exchange was published.
Why he is in the Hall of Makers
Banneker's work shows what the surveyor's trade demands: exact measurement, careful records, and the ability to connect instruments on the ground to reference points in the sky. Today's surveyors use GNSS satellites where Banneker used stars, but the logic is the same.
Further reading
Silvio A. Bedini, The Life of Benjamin Banneker (1972; revised 1999); Benjamin Banneker Historical Park & Museum, Oella, Maryland.
