Traverse Benjamin Pinn Sr.

Traverse Benjamin Pinn Sr. (November 6, 1840 - March 26, 1888) was an African American politician, civic leader, and entrepreneur. He served as a farmer, teamster, baseball player, barber, politician, storekeeper, clerk, messenger, businessman, journalist, inventor, and watchman. He co-founded The People’s Advocate, the first weekly newspaper in Virginia owned and operated by African Americans. Pinn also invented and received a patent for the wooden file holder, predating the metal filing cabinet by 20 years. Pinn died of an suspected homicide on March 26, 1888, at the age of forty-seven.

Early life
Born free, on November 6, 1840, in Prince William County, Virginia. His father, Howison Pinn (1807-1876), was born free in Fauquier County, Virginia and his mother, Pattie Pinn-Stokes (1810-1896), was free but had been enslaved as a child by the Lewis family in Prince William County. In 1843, members of the Lewis family sought to enslave and sell Traverse and his siblings. His parents petitioned the court for confirmation of the children’s freedom, and on May 15, 1845, a judge decreed that they “were born free and are free.” In 1846, Howison Pinn bought 130 acres of farmland in Prince William County at public auction, and the 1860 U.S. Census lists Traverse as working as a farmhand there.

Serving on both sides of the Civil War
Following the Confederate States Army's victory on July 21, 1862, at the First Battle of Manassas, the departing confederate army trampled Pinn's cornfield and helped themselves to their limited provisions. Earlier that year the Virginia General Assembly passed a law permitting the capture and impressment of freed African Americans to work as laborers. Traverse Pinn was forced to work in Confederate field hospitals in Manassas and Richmond. In 1863, Pinn escaped to Union-controlled territory, where, according to a later account formed with the Union Army and served as a wagoner for the Army's Quartermaster Department moving supplies in the Alexandria area. In May 1864, Pinn purchased a house on Duke Street in The Bottoms, an African American neighborhood in the city.

Post Civil War
Following the war, Pinn began a career in politics and public service, becoming one of the first two African Americans elected to local office in Alexandria and serving as magistrate, member of the city council, and county supervisor. In his final years, Pinn moved to Washington, D.C., where he owned and operated a barbershop near the Capitol.

Marriage and children
Prior to Pinn's first and only marriage he had a relationship with Ms. Jane Jackson. This resulted in the birth of his first son, Norman Benjamin Pinn (1864-1895). He married Susan E. Beckley (1847-1896) on October 3, 1866, in Alexandria, Virginia. This union resulted in three more children. Howard William Travis Pinn (1871-1939), Traverse Benjamin Pinn, Jr. (1873-1948) and Centennial Sada Pinn (1876-1892).

Inventor
On August 17, 1880, Pinn received a patent for a file holder, making him one of the few nineteenth-century Black Virginians to receive a patent. Previously, stacks of records had been tied together with string; Pinn’s invention, which predated the metal filing cabinet by two decades, improved document storage by using wooden slats held together by metal fasteners. In 1882, the U.S. Treasury Department and U.S. War Department contracted with Pinn to purchase his file holders.