This well-grounded young man from Royalton forgoes performing to reach for the stars. A story of calculations...

On January 6, 1836, Truman Henry Safford was born in Royalton.

Mrs. Safford must have known her son had an unusual talent, when at six he told her that if she knew the number of rods around the meadow, he could tell its circumference in barleycorns. She answered 1,040 rods. The boy responded with 617,760 barleycorns. Young Safford was correct.

He became known as " Vermont boy-calculator," but unlike most math prodigies, Safford didn't perform. Safford studied astronomy at Harvard, and his contributions to human understanding of the stars, earth and moon are significant.

Image courtesy the Autumn 1953 Vermont Life in the collections of the Vermont Historical Society.

January Archives | January 7