The record before the wall: Thomas Jennings (1821) and Henry Blair (1834, 1836) (New York; Maryland)
Record: the document says itPattern: documents line upLens: our readingOpen: not yet proven
Year: 1821 · Places: Northeast, Africa
SUMMARYThe record before the wall: Thomas Jennings (1821) and Henry Blair (1834, 1836) (New York; Maryland) [Connections: Tech & skilled labor, Nov 5, 2026]
RECORDThomas L. Jennings, born free in New York City, received a patent in 1821 for "dry scouring," a dry-cleaning method. HistoryNet and Wikipedia both call this the first US patent issued to an African American inventor. Henry Blair, born in Glen Ross, MD, in 1807, patented a corn seed planter on 14 Oct. 1834 and a cotton planter on 31 Aug. 1836. BlackPast says he is the only inventor the Patent Office recorded as a "colored man," and that he could not read or write. STATUS: Jennings is free (born free, own business). Blair is free according to BlackPast, which says he "appears to have never been enslaved." BlackPast reasons from the fact that enslaved people could not register patents; that is an inference, not a document
PATTERNBefore Dred Scott and the 1858 opinion, free Black inventors got patents. The usual "Blair was first" line is wrong: Jennings came 13 years earlier
LENS (WW9)The patent list itself shows that free men of color were inventing and filing before the door was shut
OPENPull Blair's patent files to confirm the "colored man" notation and how he signed