One of the standing arguments against the Negro was, that he lacked the faculty of solving mathematical problems.  This charge was made without a disposition to allow him an opportunity to submit himself to a proper test.  It was equivalent to putting out a man’s eyes, and then asserting boldly that he cannot see; of manacling his ankles, and charging him with the inability to run.  But notwithstanding all the prohibitions against instructing the Negro, and his far remove from intellectual stimulants, the subject to whom attention is now called had within his own untutored intellect the elements of a great mathematician.

Thomas Fuller, familiarly known as the Virginia Calculator, was a native of Africa.  At the age of fourteen he was stolen, and sold into slavery in Virginia, where he found himself the property of a planter residing about four miles from Alexandria.  He did not understand the art of reading or writing, but by a marvellous faculty was able to perform the most difficult calculations.  Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia, Penn., in a letter addressed to a gentleman residing in Manchester, Eng., says that hearing of the phenomenal mathematical powers of “Negro Tom,” he, in company with other gentlemen passing through Virginia, sent for him.  One of the gentlemen asked him how many seconds a man of seventy years, some odd months, weeks, and days, had lived, he gave the exact number in a minute and a half.  The gentleman took a pen, and after some figuring told Tom he must be mistaken, as the number was too great.”  ’Top, massa!” exclaimed Tom, “you hab left out de leap-years!” And sure enough, on including the leap-years in the calculation, the number given by Tom was correct.

“He was visited by William Hartshorn and Samuel Coates,” says Mr. Needles, “of this city (Philadelphia), and gave correct answers to all their questions such as, How many seconds there are in a year and a half?  In two minutes he answered 47,304,000.  How many seconds in seventy years, seventeen days, twelve hours?  In one minute and a half, 2,110,500,800.[617]

That he was a prodigy, no one will question.[618] He was the wonder of the age.  The following appeared in several newspapers at the time of his death:—­

“DIED,—­Negro Tom, the famous African calculator, aged 80 years.  He was the property of Mrs. Elizabeth Cox, of Alexandria.  Tom was a very black man.  He was brought to this country at the age of fourteen, and was sold as a slave with many of his unfortunate countrymen.  This man was a prodigy.  Though he could neither read nor write, he had perfectly acquired the use of enumeration.  He could give the number of months, days, weeks, hours, minutes, and seconds, for any period of time that a person chose to mention, allowing in his calculations for all the leap years that happened in the time.  He would give the number of poles, yards, feet, inches, and barley-corns in a given distance—­say,