How these “eccentricities of genius” were looked upon by the senior Mr. Bond does not appear, but, at any rate, William was made a member of the firm about the date of his majority, and forthwith the clockmaking business was expanded to include the rating, repairing and making of chronometers. Astronomy could now go hand in hand with “business.” He must have had the means of ascertaining the true local time before he was himself owner of an instrument suited to that purpose. He made his first seagoing chronometer in 1812, and it was the first made in America. Its engraved trade mark was “Wm. C. Bond, 1812.” It at once went into service, and satisfactorily stood the test of a voyage to and from the East Indies. For making this he had a working model; the stationary or shop chronometer of 1804 was made according to a description he found in an old French book of a chronometer used by La Perouse, the navigator. In 1810 the business of the Bonds was removed to Congress street. About the same time the family removed to Dorchester where for a while they occupied, as tenants, different houses. Mr. Bond himself said in his later years that what first gave him a determination for astronomy was his experience of the total eclipse of 1806. Once aroused, the feeling never ceased to have sway, and it modified all his business ambitions as a chronometer maker. But as such an artisan he had excuse in the eyes of the practical minded for his loved explorations into the starry depths. In the lack of proper instruments his earliest observations were made by crude methods, which yet gave proof of his originality and of the fascination which the study had for him. It was soon after 1811 that he first gained recognition from any one competent to pass judgment upon his essential mental qualities. On Sept. 4, 1811, Prof. John Farrar of Harvard College first caught sight of a comet in the western sky. He appears to have at once notified Dr. Nathaniel Bowditch of Salem, and they two, and a few others in New England who had telescopes, traced its subsequent progress. Each of the two published an account of his observations in the Memoirs of the American Academy. Prof. Farrar having given in his introductory paragraph the date of his first observation, adds that the comet had been seen earlier by Mr. Bond of Dorchester, whom he calls “William Bond, Jr.,” and says that Mr. Bond had “obligingly favored” him with the following notices: I remarked on the 21st of April a faint, whitish light near the constellation Canis Major, projecting a tail about one degree in length, and set down its place as follows: Right ascension, 106°; declination, 9° S. April 24, right ascension, 108°; declination, 7° or 8° S. Its motion and the situation of its tail convinced me that it was a comet. I noticed it several times in May, and supposed that its motion was toward the western part of the constellation Leo.