One of the most notable African American inventors from Montgomery County, Maryland was Henry Blair born around 1807. Little is known about his early years, but we assume he was a freedman by age 27 when he was a successful commercial farmer who saw a need for farm machinery to make his job easier. In 1834 he was granted a patent for his mechanical corn seed planter. Enslaved persons were not permitted to hold patents. His invention allowed the farmers to plant their corn much faster, and with much less labor. The machine also helped with weed control. The corn planter resembled a wheelbarrow with a chamber fixed to the bottom that disperses the seed. After the seed is dispersed, rakes attached to the back of the wheelbarrow drag over the seed to cover them with soil. Blair’s corn planter resulted in more efficient crop planting and resulted in greater overall yield for farmers.
An article from The Mechanics’ Magazine in 1836 carried a story of Henry Blair’s invention and stated: “A free man of colour, Henry Blair by name, has invented a machine called the corn-planter, which is now exhibiting in the capital of Washington. It is described as a very simple and ingenious machine, which, as moved by a horse, opens the furrow, drops (at proper intervals, and in an exact and suitable quantity,) the corn, covers it, and levels the earth, so as, in fact, to plant the corn as rapidly as a horse can draw a plough over the ground. The inventor thinks it will save the labor of eight men. He is about to make some alterations in it to adapt it to the planting of cotton.”
Henry Blair was granted his second patent in 1836 for a cotton planter. For a long time, Blair was thought to be the first African American to receive a patent. He was actually the second African American inventor to have been granted a patent. He signed his patents with an “x” because he could not write. Blair’s was the only issued patent that noted the inventor’s race on the patent. Henry Blair died in 1860 of unknown causes.