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Who Was Benjamin Banneker?
Benjamin Banneker was born in Maryland on November 9, 1731. His father and
grandfather were former slaves.
A farmer of modest means, Banneker nevertheless lived a life of unusual
achievement. In 1753, the young man borrowed a pocket watch from a
well-to-do neighbor; he took it apart and made a drawing of each
component, then reassembled the watch and returned it, fully functioning,
to its owner.
From his drawings Banneker then proceeded to carve, out of wood, enlarged
replicas of each part. Calculating the proper number of teeth for each
gear and the necessary relationships between the gears, he constructed a
working wooden clock that kept accurate time and struck the hours for over
50 years.
At age 58, Banneker began the study of astronomy and was soon predicting
future solar and lunar eclipses. He compiled the ephemeris, or information
table, for annual almanacs that were published for the years 1792 through
1797. "Benjamin Banneker's Almanac" was a top seller from Pennsylvania to
Virginia and even into Kentucky.
In 1791, Banneker was a technical assistant in the calculating and
first-ever surveying of the Federal District, which is now Washington,
D.C.
The "Sable Astronomer" was often pointed to as proof that African
Americans were not intellectually inferior to European Americans. Thomas
Jefferson himself noted this in a letter to Banneker.
Banneker died on Sunday, October 9, 1806 at the age of 74. A few small
memorial traces still exist in the Ellicott City/Oella region of Maryland,
where Banneker spent his entire life except for the Federal survey. It was
not until the 1990s that the actual site of Banneker's home, which burned
on the day of his burial, was determined.
In 1980, the U.S. Postal Service issued a postage stamp in his honor.
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