It was under these unpromising circumstances that little Benjamin grew up, his destiny being apparently nothing more than to work on the little farm beside his poor and ignorant parents.  When he was approaching manhood, he went, in the intervals of toil, to an obscure and remote country-school; for, until the cotton-gin made negroes too valuable on the animal side for the human side to be allowed anything so perilous as education, there were to be found here and there in the South fountains whereat even negroes might slake their thirst for learning.  At this school Benjamin acquired a knowledge of reading and writing, and advanced in arithmetic as far as “Double Position.”  Beyond these rudiments he was entirely his own teacher.  After leaving school he had to labor constantly for his own support; but he lost nothing of what he had acquired.  It is a frequent remark that up to a certain point the negroes learn even more rapidly than white children under the same teaching, but that afterward, in the higher branches, they are slow, and, some maintain, incapable.  Young Banneker had no books at all, but in the midst of his labor he so improved upon and evolved what he had gained in arithmetic that his intelligence became a matter of general observation.  He was such an acute observer of the natural world, and had so diligently observed the signs of the times in society, that it is very doubtful whether at forty years of age this African had his superior in Maryland.

Perhaps the first wonder amongst his comparatively illiterate neighbors was excited, when, about the thirtieth year of his age, Benjamin made a clock.  It is probable that this was the first clock of which every portion was made in America; it is certain that it was as purely his own invention as if none had ever been made before.  He had seen a watch, but never a clock, such an article not being within fifty miles of him.  The watch was his model.  He was a long time at work on the clock,—­his chief difficulty, as he used often to relate, being to make the hour, minute, and second hands correspond in their motion.  But at last the work was completed, and raised the admiration for Banneker to quite a high pitch among his few neighbors.

The making of the clock proved to be of great importance in assisting the young man to fulfil 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.  It was in 1787 that Benjamin received from Mr. George Ellicott Mayer’s “Tables,” Ferguson’s “Astronomy,” and Leadbetter’s “Lunar Tables.”  Along with these, some astronomical instruments, also, were given him.  Mr. Ellicott, prevented from telling Benjamin anything concerning the use of the instruments for some time after they were given, went over to