A FINE COPY OF A NOTED RARITY
140
●
(ALMANAC.) BANNEKER, BENJAMIN.
Banneker’s Almanack and
Ephemeris for the Year of our Lord, 1793.
[46] unnumbered pages, [A]4 B2 C4 D2
E4 F2 G4 H1/ Last 2 p. are advertisements; signature G partially unopened.. Original self-
wrappers, sewn; a couple of minor stains and contemporary ownership signatures of
members of the Caleb Kirk family of Providence, Pennsylvania.
Philadelphia: Printed and sold by Joseph Cruikshank, (1792)
[10,000/15,000]
AN EXCEPTIONAL COPY
.
Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806), self-taught astronomer, mathematician,
surveyor and author, helped with the survey of the Federal Territory that was to become the grid of
Washington D.C. Encouraged by his
neighbor
friends the Ellicotts,
Banneker produced his first Almanack
and Ephemeris in 1791. It was pub-
lished by Baltimore printer Godard &
Angell, as “Benjamin Banneker’s
Pennsylvania Delaware, Maryland
and Virginia Almanack and
Ephemeris for the Year of Our Lord
1792.” Just before its publication,
Banneker sent a manuscript copy to
Thomas Jefferson, with a cover letter
urging the abolition of slavery, which
he compared to the state of the country
before its separation from Great
Britain. He included a quote from a
poem by Phillis Wheatley. Jefferson
replied to Banneker and there followed
a brief exchange in which Jefferson
stated that “nobody wishes more than
I do to see such proofs as you exhibit
that nature hath given to our black
brethren talents equal to the other col-
ors of men.” He seemed unimpressed
by Wheatley’s poetry. In short,
Jefferson maintained his belief that
blacks could occasionally produce some-
one of the intellect of Phillis Wheatley
or Benjamin Banneker; but that the
race itself was limited in it’s capabili-
ties. Provenance: Private collection,
originally Phebe Kirk, whose signa-
ture, symbol (?) and date of 1792 appear at the end of the text. Phebe was born in Providence,
Pennsylvania in 1778. Shipton and Mooney 24071, citing the AAS copy; OCLC locates 7 addi-
tional copies: LCP, Haverford, Emory, Tulane, George Washington, and Cincinnati Public Library.
NO COPY OF THIS ALMANACK HAS APPEARED AT AUCTION IN THE LAST
25
YEARS
.
A DEFEC
-
TIVE COPY OF THE
1796
ALMANACK SOLD IN THESE ROOMS IN
2006
FOR
$10,350.
