A substantial mythology exaggerating Banneker's accomplishments has developed during the two centuries that have elapsed since he lived. Several such urban legends describe Banneker's alleged activities in the Washington area around the time that he participated in the federal district boundary survey. Others involve his clock and his almanacs. All lack support by historical evidence. Some are contradicted by such evidence.
Plan of the City of Washington
While Andrew Ellicott and his team were conducting the federal district boundary survey, Pierre Charles L'Enfant was preparing a plan for the federal capital city (the City of Washington), which would be located in a relatively small area bounded by the Potomac River, the Anacostia River (known at the time as the "Eastern Branch"), the base of the fall line and Rock Creek at the center of the much larger federal district. In late February 1792, President George Washington dismissed L'Enfant, who had failed to have his plan published and who was experiencing frequent conflicts with the three Commissioners that Washington had appointed to supervise the planning and survey of the federal district and city.
According to a Banneker legend, L'Enfant took his plans with him after his dismissal, leaving no copies behind. As the story is told, Banneker spent two days reconstructing the bulk of the city's plan from his presumably photographic memory. According to the story, the plans that Banneker purportedly drew from memory provided the basis for the later construction of the federal capital city. Titles of works relating this fable have touted Banneker as "The Man Who Saved Washington" and "An Early American Hero".
In one version of the tale, Banneker and Andrew Ellicott both surveyed the area of, and configured the final layout for, the placement of major governmental buildings, boulevards and avenues while reconstructing L'Enfant's plan. According to this version, Banneker either "made astronomical calculations and implementations" that established points of significance in the capital city, including those of the "16th Street Meridian" (see White House meridian), the White House, the Capitol and the Treasury Building, or "helped in selecting the sites" of those features.
However, historical research has shown that the legend cannot be correct. Banneker left the federal capital area and returned to Ellicott's Mills in April 1791. At that time, L'Enfant was still developing his plan for the federal city and had not yet been dismissed from his job. L'Enfant presented his plan to President Washington in August 1791, four months after Banneker had left.
Further, there never was any need to reconstruct L'Enfant's plan. After largely completing the district boundary survey, Andrew Ellicott began a survey of the federal city in accordance with L'Enfant's plan. During a contentious period in February 1792, Ellicott informed the Commissioners that L'Enfant had refused to give him an original plan that L'Enfant possessed at the time. However, Washington and others, including Ellicott, had in their possession at least one original and copy of various versions of the plan that L'Enfant had also prepared. Andrew Ellicott, with the aid of his brother, Benjamin Ellicott, then revised L'Enfant's plan, despite L'Enfant's protests. Shortly thereafter, Washington dismissed L'Enfant. After L'Enfant departed, Andrew Ellicott continued the city survey in accordance with revisions to the plan that he and his brother had made.
There is no historical evidence that shows that Banneker was involved in any of this. As a researcher has reported, the letter that Andrew Ellicott addressed to the Commissioners in February 1792 describing his revision of L'Enfant's plan did not mention Banneker's name. Thomas Jefferson did not describe any connection between Banneker and the plan for the federal city when relating his knowledge of Banneker's works in his 1809 letter to Joel Barlow.
In November 1971, the National Park Service held a public ceremony to dedicate and name Benjamin Banneker Park on L'Enfant Promenade in Washington, D.C. The U.S. Department of Interior authorized the naming as an official commemorative designation celebrating Banneker's role in the survey and design of the nation’s capital. Speakers at the event hailed Banneker for his contributions to the plan of the capital city after L'Enfant's dismissal, claiming that Banneker had saved the plan by reconstructing it from memory. A researcher later pointed out that these statements were erroneous.
In May 2000, Austin H. Kiplinger and Walter E. Washington, the co-chairmen of the Leadership Committee for the planned City Museum of Washington, D.C., wrote in The Washington Post that the museum would remind visitors that Banneker had helped complete L'Enfant's project to map the city. A letter to the editor of the Post entitled "District History Lesson" then responded to this statement by noting that the U.S. Library of Congress owned a copy of a plan for the city that bears the adopted name of the plan's author, "Peter Charles L'Enfant". The U.S. National Archives holds a copy of "Ellicott's engraved Plan superimposed on the Plan of L'Enfant showing the changes made in the engraved Plan under the direction of President Washington". As an original version of L'Enfant's plan still exists, President Washington and Ellicott clearly had at least one such version available for their use when L'Enfant departed.
Appointment to planning commission for Washington, D.C.
In 1918, Henry E. Baker, an assistant examiner in the United States Patent Office, wrote of Banneker in the
Journal of Negro History: "It is on record that it was on the suggestion of his friend, Major Andrew Ellicott, ..., that Thomas Jefferson nominated Banneker and Washington appointed him a member of the commission..." whose duties were to "define the boundary line and lay out the streets of the Federal Territory, later called the District of Columbia". However, Baker did not identify the record on which he based this statement. Baker additionally stated that Andrew Ellicott and L'Enfant were also members of this commission.
Historical evidence contradicts Baker's statements. In 1791, President Washington appointed Thomas Johnson, Daniel Carroll and David Stuart to be the three commissioners who, in accordance with the authority that the Residence Act had granted to the President, would oversee the survey of the federal district, and "according to such Plans, as the President shall approve", provide public buildings to accommodate the federal government in 1800. The Residence Act did not authorize the President to appoint any more than three commissioners that could serve at the same time. As Banneker, Andrew Ellicott, and L'Enfant performed their tasks during the time that Johnson, Carroll and Stuart were serving as commissioners, President Washington could not have legally appointed either Banneker, Ellicott or L'Enfant to serve as members of the "commission" that Baker described.
In 1999, a researcher reported that an exhaustive survey of U.S. government repositories, including the Public Buildings and Grounds files in the National Archives and collections in the Library of Congress, had failed to identify Banneker's name on any contemporary documents or records relating to the selection, planning and survey of the City of Washington. The researcher also noted that none of L'Enfant's survey papers that the researcher had found had contained Banneker's name.
Other legends and embellishments
In 1930, writer Lloyd Morris claimed in an academic journal article entitled "The Negro 'Renaissance that "Benjamin Banneker attracted the attention of a President.... President Thomas Jefferson sent a copy of one of Banneker's almanacs to his friend, the French philosopher Condorcet...." However, Thomas Jefferson sent Banneker's almanac to the Marquis de Condorcet in 1791, a decade before he became President in 1801.
In 1943, an African American artist, Charles Alston, who was at the time an employee of the United States Office of War Information, designed a cartoon that embellished the statements that Henry E. Baker had made in 1918. Like Baker, Alston incorrectly claimed that Banneker "was placed on the commission which surveyed and laid out the city of Washington, D.C." Alston extended this claim by also stating that Banneker had been a "city planner". His cartoon further stated that Banneker had "constructed the first clock made in America".
In 1976, the singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder celebrated Banneker's mythical feats in his song "Black Man", from the album
Songs in the Key of Life. The lyrics of the song state:
Who was the man who helped design the nation's capitol, made the first clock to give time in America and wrote the first almanac? Benjamin Banneker - a black man.
The question's answer is incorrect. Banneker did not help design either the U.S. Capitol or the nation's capital city. The first known clockmaker of record in America was Thomas Nash, an early settler of New Haven in 1638. A known American clock was made in 1680. A researcher has noted that at least four clockmakers were working in Annapolis, Maryland before 1753, when Banneker completed his own clock. "Pierce's (Peirse's) Almanac of 1639 calculated for New England and printed by Stephen Day" preceded Banneker's birth by nearly a century.
In 1999, the National Capital Memorial Commission concluded that the relationship between Banneker and L’Enfant was such that L’Enfant Promenade was the most logical place in Washington, DC on which to construct a proposed memorial to Banneker. However, a researcher has been unable find any historical evidence that shows that Banneker had any relationship at all to L'Enfant or to L'Enfant's plan for the city.
In 2000, historians John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss, Jr., wrote in the eighth edition of the book,
From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, whose first edition had been published in 1947, that the "most distinguished honor that Banneker received was his appointment to serve with the commission to define the boundary lines and lay out the streets of the District of Columbia." The writers, who referenced Baker's 1918 article, also stated that Banneker's friend, George Ellicott, was a member of the commission and that Thomas Jefferson had submitted Banneker's name to President Washington.
However, neither Banneker nor George Ellicott received appointments to serve on any such commission. Further, although Andrew Ellicott led the survey that defined the District's boundary lines and, with L'Enfant, laid out the capital city's streets, George Ellicott did not participate in either of these activities. Additionally, there is no historical evidence that shows that President Washington participated in the process that resulted in Banneker's appointment as an assistant to Andrew Ellicott on the District boundary survey team. A researcher has been unable to find any documentation that shows that Washington and Banneker ever met each other.
In 2002, Molefi Kete Asante included Benjamin Banneker on his biographical list of
100 Greatest African Americans. However, a reviewer of this publication stated: "More serious perhaps is the lack of more critical information on the people’s whose biographies are presented."
In 2005, actor James Avery narrated a DVD entitled
A History of Black Achievement in America. A quiz based on a section of the DVD entitled "Emergence of the Black Hero" asked:
Benjamin Banneker was a member of the planning commission for ____________ . a. New York City b. Philadelphia c. Washington, D.C. d. Atlanta
Historical markers
Several historical markers in Maryland and Washington, D.C., contain information relating to Benjamin Banneker that is unsupported by historical evidence or is contradicted by such evidence:
Historical marker in Benjamin Banneker Historical Park, Baltimore County, Maryland
A commemorative historical marker that the Maryland Historical Society erected on the present grounds of Benjamin Banneker Historical Park in Baltimore County, Maryland, states that Banneker "published the first Maryland almanac" in 1792. A researcher has reported that this statement is incorrect. The researcher stated that Banneker modeled the format of his almanac after a series of almanacs (
The United States Almanack) that Andrew Ellicott had authored from 1781 to 1785. Ellicott had lived in Maryland during some of those years. Ellicott's almanacs were published in Baltimore, Maryland.
Further, Banneker did not "publish" his 1792 almanac. Although he authored this work, others printed, distributed and sold it.
Historical marker in Benjamin Banneker Park, Washington, DC
A historical marker that the National Park Service erected in Benjamin Banneker Park in Washington, D.C., states in an unreferenced paragraph:
Banneker became intrigued by a pocket watch he had seen as a young man. Using a knife he intricately carved out the wheels and gears of a wooden timepiece. The remarkable clock he constructed from memory kept time and struck the hours for the next fifty years.
However, Banneker completed his clock at the age of 22, when he was still a young man. No historical evidence shows that he constructed the clock from memory. Further, it is open to question as to whether the clock was actually "remarkable". Wooden clocks were apparently constructed in America in 1715, and were in commercial production there by 1745, eight years before Banneker completed his own clock.
A photograph on the historical marker illustrates a wooden striking clock that a Connecticut clockmaker built around the same time that Banneker constructed his own clock. The marker does not indicate that the clock is not Banneker's.
Historical marker in Newseum, Washington, DC
In 2008, when the Newseum opened to the public on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., visitors looking over the Avenue could read a historical marker that stated:
Benjamin Banneker assisted Chief Surveyor Andrew Ellicott in laying out the Avenue based on Pierre L’Enfant’s Plan. President George Washington appointed Ellicott and Banneker to survey the boundaries of the new city.
Little or none of this appears to be correct. Banneker had no involvement with the laying out of Pennsylvania Avenue or with L’Enfant’s Plan. Andrew Ellicott surveyed the boundaries of the federal district (not the “boundaries of the new city”) at the suggestion of Thomas Jefferson. Ellicott (not Washington) appointed Banneker to assist in the boundary survey.
Commemorative U.S. quarter dollar coin nomination
In 2008, the District of Columbia government considered selecting an image of Banneker for the reverse side of the District of Columbia quarter in the 2009 District of Columbia and United States Territories Quarter Program. The narrative supporting this selection alleged that Banneker helped design the new capital city, was "among the first ever African-American presidential appointees" and was "a founder of Washington, D.C." After the District chose to commemorate another person on the coin, the District's mayor, Adrian M. Fenty, sent a letter to the Director of the United States Mint, Edmund C. Moy, that claimed that Banneker "played an integral role in the physical design of the nation's capital." However, no president ever appointed Banneker to any position. Further, Banneker played no role at all in the design, development or founding of the nation's capital beyond his two-month participation in the two-year survey of the federal district's boundaries.