About Banneker Watches

Banneker, Inc. is a watch and clock company founded in 2003 by Derrick Holmes. Banneker timepieces are differentiated in the marketplace by a unique design feature that connects us to our legendary namesake. Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806) was a free African American considered to be America’s first black scientist and inventor. Banneker also became a noted astronomer, mathematician, and accomplished musician, he published yearly almanacs, was part of the survey team that established Washington DC, and was a forefather in the fight for racial equality publishing his correspondence with Thomas Jefferson on the matter. At the age of twenty-one, Benjamin met a man who showed him a pocket watch. Banneker was so fascinated that he borrowed the watch and studied how it worked, drew a picture of it, and made mathematical calculations for the parts. He worked on building a clock for two years until it was completed in 1753. It was made entirely of wood and he had carved the gears by hand. For more than forty years, the clock struck every hour until it was destroyed in a mysterious fire shortly after his death. The company pays homage to Benjamin Banneker by Integrating luxury woods into every watch and clock It is one of the only minority-owned watch and clock companies in the world today and the first company to produce timepieces with the Banneker name in over 200 years.  Benjamin Banneker watches are original and truly one of a kind. Wear the History. Share the History.Read their story