The Kentucky Gazette

Account of a wonderful Talent for Arithmetical calculations in an African Slave
There is now living, about 4 miles from Philadelphia, in Virginia. a negro slave of 70 years old; of the name of Thomas Fuller, the property of Mrs Elizabeth Cox. This man possesses a talent for arithmetical calculations, the history of which, I conceive, merits a place in the records of the human mind. He is a native of Africa, and can neither read nor write. Two gentlemen, natives of Pennsylvania, viz, William Hartshorne, and Samuel Coates, men of probity and respectable characters, having heard, in travelling through the neighbourhood in which this slave lived, of his extraordinary powers in arithmetic. sent for him, and had their curiosity sufficiently gratified by the answers he gave to the following questions.

First. Upon being asked, how many seconds there are in a year and a half, he answered in about two minutes 47,304,000.

Second. On being asked, how many seconds a man had lived, who is 70 years, 17 days and 12 hours old, he answered in a minute and an half, 2,210,500,800.

One of the gentlemen who employed himself with his pen in making these calculations, told him he was wrong, and that the sum was not so great as he had said--upon which the old man hastily replied. " Top Massa, you forget de leap year.". -On adding the seconds of the leap years to the others, the amount of the whole in both of their sums agreed exactly.

Third The following question was then proposed to him. Suppose a farmer has six sows, and each sow six female pigs, the first year, and they all increase in the same proportion, to the end of eight years. how many sows will the farmer then have?. In ten minutes he answered, 31,588,806 The difference of time between his answering this, and the two former questions, was occasioned by a trifling mistake he made from a misapprehension of the question.

In the presence of Thomas Wistar and Benjamin West, two respectable citizens of Philadelphia, he gave the amount of nine figures multiplied by nine.

He informed their first mentioned gentleman that he began his application to figures by counting ten, and that when he was able to count an hundred, he thought (his own words) " a very clever fellow."

His next attempt after this was to count the number of hairs in a cow's tail, which he found to be 2872.

He next amused himself with counting grain by grain. a bushel of wheat and a bushel of flax-seed.

From this he was led to calculate, with the most perfect accuracy. how many things a house of certain dimensions would require to cover it; and how many posts and rails were necessary to enclose. and how many grains of corn were necessary to sow a certain quantity of ground. From this application of his talents his mistress often derived considerable benefit.

At the time he gave this account of himself he said his memory began to fail him-he was grey headed. and exhibited several other marks of the weakness of old age-he had worked hard upon a farm during the whole of his life. but had never been intemperate in the use of spirituous liquors. He spoke with great respect of his Mistress, and mentioned in a particular manner his obligations to her for refusing to sell him. which she had been tempted to do by offers of large sums of money from several curious persons.

One of the gentlemen(Mr. Coates) having remarked in his presence, that it was a pity he had not an education equal to his genius; he said " No massa --it is best I got no learning, for many learned men be great fools."