reply of that statesman." All the rest that he possessed was left
to the two sisters. It was due to the faithful execution of his wishes
on the very day of his death that his valuable manuscripts were
preserved at all. They were all carried to George Ellicott, and this
circumstance was the first notice that Ellicott received of the
passing away of his friend. "Banneker's funeral took place two days
afterward, and while the ceremonies were in progress at his grave, his
home took fire and burned so rapidly that nothing could be
saved."[183]

Some time before his death Banneker gave to one of his sisters the
feather bed on which he usually slept, and this she preserved as her
only keepsake of him. Years after wards she had occasion to open the
bed and, feeling something hard among the feathers, she discovered
that it was a purse of money. This circumstance shows that Banneker
was not "in the evening of his life overshadowed by extreme
poverty."[184]

In an excellent paper read on April 18, 1916, before the Columbia
Historical Society of Washington, by Mr. P. Lee Phillips, of the
Library of Congress, _Banneker's Almanac_ was compared with Benjamin
Franklin's _Poor Richard's_ Almanac. Mr. Phillips also referred to his
efforts in behalf of peace and to the friendship that existed between
Banneker and such distinguished men of his time as Washington and
Jefferson. He closed his article on Banneker with the broad-minded
declaration that "Maryland should in some manner honor the memory of
this distinguished citizen, who, notwithstanding the race prejudice of
the time, rose to eminence in scientific attainments, the study of
which at that early date was almost unknown."[185] The recognition of
Douglass in Rochester and Boston, Pushkin in Petrograd and Moscow and
Dumas in Paris, affords splendid suggestions of what we hope to see of
Banneker in Baltimore. It is a sad reflection on the people of this
country that practically nothing has been done to honor this
distinguished man.

HENRY E. BAKER

ASSISTANT EXAMINER, UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

FOOTNOTES:

[144] _The Leisure Hour_, 1853, II, p. 54.

[145] Tyson, _Banneker, The Afric-American Astronomer_, p. 10.

[146] _The Atlantic Monthly_, XI, p. 80

[147] In another particular this same sketch differs from several
others, namely, in locating young Banneker at "an obscure and distant
country school" with no mention of the oft-re