Born: December 25, 1835, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Died: January 14, 1923, Washington, DC.
Buried: Merion Memorial Park, Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.
Benjamin was the son of Hugh Tanner and Isabella Howard.
He studied for five years at Avery College in Pittsburgh, then for three years at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan.
At age 25, he was appointed to Sacramento, California, by American Methodist Episcopal (AME) bishop Daniel Payne. However, he could not afford to go, so he moved instead to Washington, DC, where he organized a Sunday School for freed slaves in the Navy Yard with the permission of Admiral John A. Dahlgren.
In 1863, Tanner became pastor of a church in Georgetown. In 1866 he moved to a large church in Baltimore, Maryland, and shortly after was became principal of the AME Annual Conference School at Fredericktown, Maryland.
In 1868, he was elected chief secretary of the AME General Conference, and founded and began editing the church newspaper, the Christian Recorder, a task he performed for 16 years.
In 1870, Avery College awarded Tanner an AM degree. In the 1870s, he received an honorary DD from Wilberforce University in Ohio.
In 1884, he became editor of the AME Review.
His works include: