Henry Blair
*The birth of Henry Blair is celebrated on this date in 1807. He was a Black farmer and inventor.
He was born in Glen Ross, Maryland, with little knowledge about his childhood. In the patent records, Blair is listed as a "colored man," making this identification the only one of its kind in early patent records. Blair was illiterate; therefore, he signed his patents with an "x." It is said that Blair was a freedman.
His first invention was the Seed-Planter, patented on October 14, 1834, which allowed farmers to plant more corn using less labor and in a shorter time. On August 31, 1836, he obtained a second patent for a cotton planter. This invention split the ground with two shovel-like blades pulled by a horse. A wheel-driven cylinder followed behind, which dropped the seed into the newly plowed ground.
When his patents were granted, United States patent law allowed freed and enslaved people to obtain patents. In 1857, this law was challenged by a slave owner who claimed that he owned "all the fruits of the slave's labor," including his slave's inventions. This resulted in a change of law in 1858, which stated that slaves were not citizens and could not hold patents. Blair had been a successful farmer for years and developed inventions to increase efficiency in farming. Henry Blair, the second African American inventor to receive a US patent, died in 1860.
In 1871, six years after the American Civil War ended, the law was changed to grant all men patent rights.
