Benjamin+Franklin

Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706-April 17 1790)
Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 17, 1706 to Josiah and Abiah Folger Franklin. He was the 15th of 17 children and the youngest son. His father was a tallow maker (or candle and soap maker) and his parents wanted him to have a career with the Church (his family was Puritan). However, because there were so many children, they could only afford to send him to school for two years. Franklin attended Boston Latin School for those years, but did not graduate. His formal schooling ended at the age of 10. However, he had a great love of reading and continued his education through books. He said in his Autobiography //"From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. This library afforded me the means of improvement by constant study, for which I set apart an hour or two each day, and thus repaired in some degree the loss of the learned// //education my father once intended for me. Reading was the only amusement I allowed//

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//myself.// //I spent no time in taverns, games, or frolics of any kind; and my industry in my// //business continued as indefatigable as it was necessary."//

He worked with his father, making candles and soap, until he was 12. At that time, he became an apprentice to his brother James, who was a printer. When Franklin was 15, James founded one of the first independent newspapers in the colonies, the New England-Courant. When James refused to let young Franklin write a letter to be printed in the newspaper, Franklin invented Mrs. Silence Dogood, a supposedly middle-aged widow, who wrote letters to the newspaper every 2 weeks. These he left under his brothers door to be discovered in the morning. These letters became the popular subject of conversation around the town and no one suspected Franklin of being the true author. When James found out it was his younger brother writing the letters, he became very angry and Franklin left apprenticeship prematurely, fleeing to Philadelphia at 17. While in Philadelphia, he boarded with a Widow Read. After some time, Franklin proposed to the widow's 15 year-old daughter, Deborah. However, the widow has some misgivings about allowing her daughter to marry Franklin and declined the offer for her daughter. While Franklin was in London, he was delayed for an extended. During that time, Deborah married a man named John Rodgers. Rodgers, however, took her dowry and fled to Barbados. At first, he worked for several different printers around the city of Philadelphia. However, he was not satisfied with the prospects. After a few months, Pennsylvania Governor Sir William Keith, convinced him to go to London, supposedly to obtain equipment to set up another newspaper in Philadelphia. Governor Keith falsely lead Franklin to believe that he would be backing the newspaper, so he stayed in London and worked as a typesetter in a printer's shop. He worked there for a time, but in 1726 with the help of Thomas Denham (a merchant), he returned to Philadelphia. Denham was kind to Franklin and supplied him with employment as a clerk, shopkeeper and bookkeeper in his business.

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Upon Denham's death in 1730, Franklin returned to printing. He set up a printing house of his own and established The Pennsylvania Gazette. Through the Gazette, Franklin was able to provide many commentaries on local reforms and initiatives. Because of this, he came to be viewed with great social respect. Franklin established a common-law marriage to Deborah Read on September 1, 1730. Besides taking in William (Franklin's illegitimate son), they had two children together. Frances Folger Franklin was born in October of 1732, and died of small pox in 1736. Sarah Franklin, known as Sally, was born in 1743. She married Richard Bache. They had seven children. Sally cared for her father in his old age. William became the last Loyalist Governor of New Jersey. Franklin couldn't accept Williams loyalty to the crown, and as a result, William settled in England and never returned to the colonies. Deborah Read Franklin died of a stroke in 1774, while Franklin was on trip to England.

Franklin as a Statesman, Politician, and Founding Father
Benjamin Franklin's long life as a statesman began in 1748, when he was selected as a councilman for Philadelphia. He became a Justice of the Peace for Philadelphia in 1749, and elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1751. That same year, he and Dr. Thomas Bond obtained a charter and established the first hospital in the Untied States, Pennsylvania Hospital. In 1757, he was sent to England by the Pennsylvania Assembly to protest against the Penn family and their political influence over the state of Pennsylvania. He stayed there for five years, but his deficiency of allies led to the failure of his mission. However, the trip was not an entire waste. It was in England that he became involved in a group called The Club of Honest Whigs. This helped to influence Franklin and his involvement in the Revolution. He became the 23rd Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1765. In June, 1776, Franklin was unanimously chosen by the Pennsylvania Assembly to serve as their delegate to the Second Continental Congress. Also in June, 1776, he was appointed to the Committee of Five (Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, and Benjamin Franklin) which wrote the Declaration of Independence. At the time, he was ill with gout, which made it impossible for him to attend most of the meetings the Committee held. However, he did make some slight changes to the drafts sent to him by Thomas Jefferson. He served as U.S. Ambassador to France from 1776-1785. He was influential in securing France as allies to the Colonies, and in turn, winning the Revolutionary War. In 1787, he served as a delegate for the Pennsylvania Convention (also known as the Constitutional Convention). He held an honorary position, however, and hardly ever engaged in debate. At the time of signing, he said about the Constitution, //"There are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them. ... I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better Constitution. ... It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does."// Franklin is the only Founding Father to have signed all four of the major founding documents of the United States: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Treaty of Paris, and the Treaty of Alliance with France.

Benjamin Franklin died April 17, 1790, at the age of 84.