In 1845,
John Hazelhurst Boneval Latrobe, an American lawyer, inventor and future president of the
American Colonization Society, read a
Memoir of Benjamin Banneker at a meeting of the
Maryland Historical Society. Latrobe's memoir, presented 39 years after Banneker's death, contains the first known account of Banneker's clock. The memoir stated:It was at this time, when he (Banneker) 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 having not yet having found its way into the quiet and secluded valley in which he lived. The watch was therefore his model. In 1863, the
Atlantic Monthly magazine published during the
American Civil War a brief biography of Banneker that an American abolitionist minister,
Moncure D. Conway, had written. Embellishing Latrobe's account of Banneker's clock, Conway described the timepiece as follows:Perhaps the first wonder amongst his comparatively illiterate neighbors was excited, when about the thirtieth year of his age, Benjamin made a clock. It is probable that this was the first clock of which every portion was made in America; it is certain that it was as purely as his own invention as if none had ever been made before. He had seen a watch, but never a clock, such an article not being within fifty miles of him. The watch was his model. Conway's biography concluded by stating "... history must record that the most original scientific intellect which the South has yet produced was that of the pure African, Benjamin Banneker." Lydia Maria Child (circa 1865) In 1865, an American abolitionist,
Lydia Maria Child, authored a book intended to be used to teach recently freed African Americans to read and to provide them with inspiration. Child's book stated that Banneker had constructed "the first clock ever made in this country". Kelly Miller In 1902,
Kelly Miller, a professor of mathematics at Howard University, made a similar undocumented claim in a
United States Bureau of Education publication. Miller, who later became a professor of
sociology and
dean of the
school's College of Arts and Sciences, stated in his paper that Banneker had in 1770 "constructed a clock to strike the hours, the first to be made in America". In contrast, Philip Lee Phillips, a Library of Congress librarian, more cautiously stated in a 1916 paper read before the Columbia Historical Society in Washington, D.C., that Banneker "is said to have made, entirely with his own hand, a clock of which it is said every portion was made in America." In 1921,
Benjamin Griffith Brawley, who had earlier worked at Howard University and had served as the first dean of
Morehouse College, authored a book entitled
A Social History of the American Negro. Repeating Kelly Miller's claim, Brawley's book stated that Banneker had in 1770 "constructed the first clock striking the hours that was made in America." In 1929,
The Chicago Defender newspaper reported that a speaker at a ceremony dedicating a sundial commemorating Banneker at Howard University had stated that "Banneker made the first clock used in America which was constructed of all American materials". In 1967,
William Loren Katz repeated this statement in his book,
Eyewitness: The Negro in American History. Katz claimed that Banneker as a teenager had "constructed a clock, the first one made entirely with American parts", a claim that Bedini refuted in 1972. Shirley Graham wrote in her 1949 book,
Your Most Humble Servant, that stories saying that Banneker made the first clock constructed in America are "no doubt carelessly written". She went on to write that it was probably quite safe to say that "Banneker made the first clock in Maryland" or perhaps in the southern Atlantic colonies. Without citing any supporting documents written during Banneker's lifetime, she then claimed that "this at least is what was said about him in his own day". In 1963, Russell Adams wrote in his book
Great Negroes, Past and Present that Banneker's clock was believed to be the first clock wholly made in America and that the clock was the first in America to strike off the hours. In 1968, a writer for the magazine
Negro Digest stated that, at the age of 21, Banneker "perfected the first clock in Maryland, possibly in America". In his 1970 book entitled
Black History: Lost, Stolen, or Strayed, Otto Lindenmeyer stated that Banneker had constructed his clock's frame and movements "entirely of wood, the first such instrument made in America". In a book entitled
Black Pioneers of Science and Invention that was also published in 1970, Louis Haber wrote that Banneker had by 1753 completed "the first clock ever built in the United States", that the device kept perfect time for more than 40 years, and that "People came from all over the country to see his clock." The preface to Haber's book reported that his work had resulted in part from a
United States Office of Education grant to "gather resource materials that could then be incorporated into science curricula at elementary and secondary schools as well as at the college level". In 1976, an Afro-American Bicentennial Corporation historian prepared a National Register of Historic Places nomination form for a District of Columbia boundary marker stone whose proposed name would commemorate Banneker. The form's "Statement of Significance" claimed that Banneker was an inventor whose "ability as a mathematician enabled him to construct what is believed to have been the first working wooden clock in America". In 1978, the
Baltimore Afro-American reported that Banneker was the "inventor of the first clock". In 1980, the
United States Postal Service (USPS) issued a postage stamp that commemorated Banneker. A USPS description of Banneker stated: "... In 1753, he built the first watch made in America, a wooden pocket watch." In 1987,
Oregon's
Portland Public Schools District published a series of educational materials entitled
African-American Baseline Essays. The Essays were to be "used by teachers and other District staff as a reference and resource just as adopted textbooks and other resources are used" as part of "a huge multicultural curriculum-development effort." An Essay entitled
African-American Contributions to Science and Technology stated that Banneker had "made America's first clock". In 1994, Erich Martel, who had earlier authored a 1991 paper describing the Essays' deficiencies, wrote an article for the
Washington Post that cited the Essays' "crippling flaws" while noting that the Essays "are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material". The specified flaws included several Banneker stories that Silvio Bedini had refuted more than a decade before the Essays appeared. In 2014, a revised edition of a 1994 book entitled
African-American Firsts repeated a statement made in the initial edition that claimed that Banneker had "designed and built the first clock in the colonies". Similarly, the author of a 2014 web page describing the early history of the
Banneker Elementary School in
Saint Louis, Virginia, stated that Banneker had in 1753 constructed the first clock made entirely in America. In 1999, the author of an article entitled
A Salute to African American Inventors that a
Fort Smith, Arkansas, newspaper published wrote that in 1753, Banneker "built one of the first watches made in America, a wooden pocket watch". The article did not provide a source for this statement, which was similar to the one that the USPS had made in 1980. The author of a 2013 book entitled
Famous Americans: A Directory of Museums, Historic Sites, and Memorials wrote that Banneker "became known for such accomplishments as building one of the first watches in America". A 2004 USPS pamphlet illustrating the 1980 Banneker postage stamp stated that Banneker had "constructed the first wooden
striking clock made in America", a statement which also appeared on a web page of the Smithsonian Institution's
National Postal Museum entitled "
Early Pioneers". The website of the
Banneker-Douglass Museum, the State of
Maryland's official museum of African American heritage, similarly claimed in 2015 that Banneker crafted "the first wooden striking clock in America". When supporting the establishment of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture, a 2004 report to the
President of the United States and the
United States Congress stated that Banneker was an African American inventor. In 2015, columnists Al Kamen and Colby Itkowitz repeated that statement in a
Washington Post article. A 2017 National Park Service web page, which also claimed that Banneker was an inventor, stated that Banneker had "constructed one of the first entirely wooden clocks in America." Sources describing the history of clockmaking in America state that clockmakers came to the
American colonies from England and Holland during the early 1600s (see:
History of timekeeping devices). Among the earliest known clockmakers in the colonies were Thomas Nash of
New Haven, Connecticut (1638), William Davis of Boston (1683), Edvardus Bogardus of
New York City (1698) and James Batterson of Boston (1707). Benjamin Chandlee, a clockmaker who had apprenticed in Philadelphia, moved his family in 1712 to
Nottingham, Maryland, from Banneker's future home. Silvio Bedini reported in 1972 that a number of watch and clockmakers were already established in Maryland before Banneker completed his clock around 1753. Prior to 1750, at least four such craftsmen were working in
Annapolis, from Banneker's home. The only accounts of Banneker's clock by people who had observed it reported only that it was made of wood, that it was suspended in a corner of his log cabin, that it had struck the hour and that Banneker had said that its only model was a borrowed watch. Tall-case striking clock constructed in Boston by Benjamin Bagnall, Sr., between 1730 and 1745(2017) Bedini stated that "Banneker's clock continued to operate until his death". However, a later author more cautiously wrote that the clock "was apparently used" until a fire destroyed Banneker's home during his 1806 funeral. Banneker's clock was not the first of its kind made in America.
Connecticut clockmakers were crafting
striking clocks throughout the 1600s, before Banneker was born. The
Dallas Museum of Art holds in its collections a similar striking clock made entirely of American parts that Bagnall constructed in Boston between 1730 and 1745. During the 1600s, when metal was harder to come by in the colonies than wood, works for many American clocks were made of wood, including the gears, which were whittled and fashioned by hand, as were all other parts. There is some evidence that wooden clocks were being made as early as 1715 near
New Haven, Connecticut. Benjamin Cheney of
East Hartford, Connecticut, was producing wooden striking clocks by 1745, eight years before Banneker completed his own wooden striking clock around 1753.
David Rittenhouse constructed a clock with wooden gears around 1749 while living on a farm near Philadelphia at the age of 17. ==Banneker's almanacs==