The Twin City star. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1910-19??, 1913-08-01
RARE SKILL OF
BEN BANNEkER
How Inventor Of Clock Rose
From 0bscuTity to Fame.
HAD MANY HARD STRUGGLES.

Achieved Greatness Nearly Two Cen.
turtles Ago Almost Single handed.
Won Success by Oossed Persistence.
Was Posssssor Of Strong Memory.
The biography Of Benjamin Banne.
ker as given by John n. B. Latrobe
and published by the American Negro
Monographs company, in Washington,
Is worthy of the most careful reading.
Professor John w. Cromwell is the edi.
tor Of series No. 3, which contains q
full account Of Banneker's achieve
ments.
Benjamin Banneker was born In Bal
tmore county, Nd, near the village Of
Ilicott's Mills, in the year 1882. His
father was a native African and his
mother the child of natives Of Africa,
80 that to no admixture Of the blood
of the white man was he indebted for
his peculiar and extraordinary abili.
ties.
His father was slave when he mar
ried, but his wife, who was free wo-
man and possessed Of great energy and
industry, very soon afterward purchas-
ed his freedom. Banneker's mother
was named Morton before her mar
Rage and belonged to a family remark.
able for its intelligence. When upward
of seventy she was still very active,
and it is remembered Of her that at
this advanced age she made nothing
Of running and skipping like a child.
Property Qualification For Voters.
A nephew Of hers, Greenbury Nor
ton, was person of some note not
outstanding his complexion. Prior to
1909 free people Of color possessed of
Q certain property qualification voted
In Maryland. In this year law, was
passed restricting the right Of voting
to free white males.
Morton was ignorant Of the law till
he offered to vote at the polls In Balti-
more county, and it is said that when
his vote was refused he addressed the
crowd in a strain of pure impassioned
eloquence which kept the audience that
the election had assembled in breath.
less attention while he spoke.
When Benjamin was old enough he
was employed to assist his parents in
their labor. This was at an early age
when his destiny seemed nothing bet
ter than that Of child Of poor and ig-
norant free Negroes, occupying q few
acres Of land in q remote and thinlv
peopled neighborhood, a destiny which
certainly at this day is not Of very
brilliant promise and which at the time
In question must have been gloomy
enough.
Attends Country District School.
In the intervals of toll and when he
was approaching or had attained man.
hood he was sent to an obscure and
distant country school. which he at
tended until he had acquired q, knowl-
edge of reading and writing and had
advanced in arithmetic AZ far as dou-
bic position. In all matters beyond
these rudiments of learning he was his
own instructor. On leaving school Ben.
"a his friends were wont to call him,
was obliged to labor for years, almost
uninterruptedly, for his support.
But, his memory being retentive, he
lost nothing of the little education he
had acquired. On the contrary, al
though utterly destitute of books, he
amplifed and improved his stock Of
arithmetical knowledge by the opera
tion Of his mind alone. He was an
observer Of everything that he saw
or which took place around him in the
natural world. -
He sought with advidity information
from all sources Of what was going
forward in society, 90 that he became
gradually possessed Of fund Of gen.
eral knowledge which it was difacult
to find among those even who were far
more favored by opportunity and cir
cumstances than he was. At FIRST. his,
information was subject Of wonder
among his illiterate neighbors only, but,
by degrees his reputation spread
through a wider circle
Benjamin Banneker. still a young
man, came to be thought Of as one who
could not only perform all the opera
lions of mental arithmetic with ex-
traordinary facility. but exercise a.
sound and discriminating judgment
upon men and things.
lnvsnts Clock at Thirty Years Of Ago.
It was at this time, when he was
about thirty years Of age. that he con-
trived and madeea clock which proved
an excellent hmepiece. He had seen
q watch, but not a clock, such an ar.
ticle not yet having found its way into
the quiet and secluded valley in which,
he lived. The watch was therefore his
model
It took him a good while to accom- .
plish this feat, his great difficulty, as
he often used to say, being to make
the hour, minute and second hands
in their motions. But the
clock was finished at last and raised
still higher the credit Of Banneker in
his neighborhood as an Ingenious man,
% well as a good arithmetician.
As already stated. the basis Of Ban
neker's arithmetical knowledge was OBJ
tanned from the schoolbook into which
he had advanced as far as double po-
sition. but in 1887 Mr.. George Ellicott 1
lent him Mayors Tablets" "Fer-
guson's Astronomy" and "Leadbeaters
Lunar Tables" Along with these books
were some astronomical instruments