Benjamin Banneker - Mathematician, Astronomer, Reformer and Surveyor

News

Dec 8

Blog by Emily Pierce, PLS, CFedS

Looking back at the start of our nation, there are those that stand out for their singular contributions that laid the foundations of democracy. Surveyors, including Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, literally set the boundaries of our country and its ideals. Other surveyors made significant and lasting contributions, including Benjamin Banneker. Banneker not only surveyed Washington, D.C., he authored almanacs, owned and ran a farm, studied the stars and correctly forecasted eclipses and much more.

A contemporary of Jefferson and Washington, Banneker was born in 1731 in Ellicott’s Mills, Maryland on a 100-acre tobacco farm. He attended a local one-room schoolhouse as a child, but that was the extent of his formal education. He showed a gift for learning early on, and used every possible opportunity to learn.

According to his biographer, John H.B. Latrobe [1803-1891]: “He [Banneker] was an acute observer of every thing that he saw, or which took place around him in the natural world, and he sought with advidity information from all sources . . . so that he became gradually possessed of a fund of general knowledge, which was difficult to find among those who were far more favored by opportunity and circumstances than he was. It was at this time, when he was about thirty years of age, that he contrived and made a clock, which proved an excellent time-piece. He had seen a watch, but not a clock; such an article not yet having found its way into the quiet and secluded valley in which he lived.” This clock, carved from wood, was a curiosity in the area and his reputation for genius grew. By 1792, he’d published his first Almanac and continued to publish them until 1802.

In 1771 Banneker met Andrew Ellicott when Ellicott moved to Baltimore County with his family and started a grist mill near Banneker’s farm. They soon became friends and Ellicott shared his knowledge of land surveying and his passion for astronomy with Banneker.

Andrew Ellicott also happened to be George Washington’s cousin, and through this connection, Ellicott was hired as a practical engineer for creating the new “Federal City” to be built on the banks of the Potomac.

Part of this job was to survey the border lines of the new District of Columbia. Ellicott’s surveying work was a difficult task, due to the fact that the city was sited in a swamp near the Potomac and the fact that they didn’t have state-of-the-art surveying tools. In order to determine their geographic position, the men had complete celestial observations which typically took a long time and required complex mathematical calculations. Because of the scientifically demanding nature of this work, Ellicott immediately hired Banneker to join him in mapping the city.

Drawing of Andrew Ellicott from the Library of Congress

Plan of the city of Washington in the territory of Columbia : ceded by the states of Virginia and Maryland to the United States of America, and by them established as the seat of their government after the year MDCCC.

Due to his age and health, Banneker’s primary responsibilities were in the observatory tent, where he maintained the regulator clock using a series of thermometers and a transit and altitude instrument. Each day, Ellicott would use the regulator clock to set his own timepiece, which he would use to determine latitude. At night, Banneker would record astronomical observations.

Banneker was paid $2 a day for his work—less than Ellicott’s $5 but commensurate with salary for assistant surveyors at that time.*

The survey work was exceptional. Ellicott’s survey of the federal city was significantly better than the Colonial-era norm.

Banneker was extraordinary for his time period. He was the son of an African slave named Robert, who had bought his own freedom, and of Mary Banneky. Mary was the daughter of an Englishwoman and a free African slave. Eventually, Benjamin Banneker’s reputation reached even overseas – his correspondence with Thomas Jefferson urging the abolition of slavery was published in both France and the United States, and was also included in his 1793 Almanac.

I can’t help but wonder how our country’s path might have been different if Jefferson had listened to and taken Banneker’s words to heart.

““Sir, how pitiable is it to reflect, that although you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of Mankind, and of his equal and impartial distribution of these rights and privileges, which he hath conferred upon them, that you should at the same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren, under groaning captivity and cruel oppression, that you should at the same time be found guilty of that most criminal act, which you professedly detested in others, with respect to yourselves.””

If you’re interested in more information about Benjamin Banneker, below are some resources:

The White House Historical Association: https://www.whitehousehistory.org/benjamin-banneker

Library of Congress: https://guides.loc.gov/benjamin-banneker/external-websites

*Source: https://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/pdf/plp/news2012sum.pdf