“The making of the clock proved to be of great importance in assisting the young man to fulfill his destiny. It attracted the attention of the Ellicott family, who had just begun a settlement at Ellicott’s Mills. They were well-educated men, with much mechanical knowledge, and some of them Quakers. They sought out the ingenious negro, and he could not have fallen into better hands. In 1787 Mr. George Ellicott gave him Mayer’s “Tables,” Ferguson’s “Astronomy,” and Leadbetter’s “Lunar Tables.” From this time astronomy became the great object of Banneker’s life, and in its study he almost disappeared from the sight of his neighbors. He slept much during the day, that he might the more devotedly observe at night the heavenly bodies whose laws he was slowly, but surely, mastering. “Very soon after the possession of the books already mentioned, Banneker determined to compile an almanac, that being the most familiar use that occurred to him of the information he had acquired. To make an almanac then was a very different thing from what it would be now, when there is an abundance of accurate tables and rules. Banneker had no aid whatever from men or rules; and Mr. George Ellicott, who procured some tables and took them to him, states that he had already advanced very far in the preparation of the logarithms necessary for the purpose. “The first almanac prepared by Banneker for publication was for the year 1792. By this time his acquirements had become generally known, and among those who were attracted by them was Mr. James McHenry. Mr. McHenry wrote to Goddard and Angell, then the almanac-publishers of Baltimore, and procured the publication of this work, which contained from the pen of Mr. McHenry, a brief notice of Banneker. When his first almanac was published, Banneker was fifty-nine years old, and had received tokens of respect from all the scientific men of the country. Among others, Thomas Jefferson, then Secretary of State under George Washington, wrote him a most flattering and complimentary letter. In his letter Jefferson said, ‘Nobody wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that Nature has given to our black brethren talents equal to those of other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing only to the degraded condition of their existence both in Africa and America.’ “Banneker continued to calculate and publish almanacs until 1802. “Mr. Benjamin H. Ellicott, who was a true friend of Banneker, and collected from various sources all the facts concerning him, wrote in a letter as follows: ‘During the whole of his long life he lived respectably and much esteemed by all who became acquainted with him, but more especially by those who could fully appreciate his genius and the extent of his acquirements.’