The name of Franklin is widely known. His portrait is placed on the $100 bill. The contribution of this person was huge for the whole country, but not everyone knows the story of his life. Read more on iphiladelphia.net.
Early life
Benjamin was born on January 17, 1706 on Milk Street in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. His father, Josiah, was a blacksmith, soap and candle maker who originated from England. In 1683, Josiah decided to emigrate to Boston. Later, Benjamin was born there in his second marriage. The couple had 7 children but after the wife’s death, Josiah remarried. The mother, Abiah Folger, originated from a Puritan family. They were among the first Pilgrims to flee to the US in search of religious freedom. Abiah’s family sailed to Boston in 1635, after the terrible persecution of the Puritans, which was arranged by the English King Charles I. In the second marriage, 10 children were born and our hero was the eighth child. Therefore, the family was huge. It was necessary to earn a lot of money for living and education. The family was not rich, so proper learning was impossible.
Benjamin studied for only two years, as there was no money for further education. For this reason, the boy tried to learn on his own and did it very well. He was able to learn French, Spanish and Italian on his own, as well as Latin. He was always drawn to knowledge. He was interested not only in the amount of data but also in the method. The boy wanted to learn everything on his own. Thus, he learned to write and read by himself at the age of 5. His father had wanted him to attend a seminary. After two years of study, he had to leave and start working quite early. At the age of 12, the boy went to study with his brother James, who helped him learn printing as a new profession. This knowledge later helped him to expand the publishing business. When the boy was 15 years old, his brother founded The New-England Courant. Benjamin began his career as a writer in it.
Letters of Silence Dogood
When our hero worked for his brother’s newspaper, he wished to start writing letters for publication. Still, he was not allowed to do so. This became an impetus for the boy because he did not accept rejection. Taking on the guise of a middle-aged widow Silence Dogood, he began sending letters to the newspaper. Later, they began to be published. No one knew who was the author for quite a long time. When the brother found out this fact, he was incredibly furious. Until this moment, the whole city was buzzing about this unknown woman and her letters. Benjamin was always an advocate of freedom of speech and he expressed himself freely while pretending to be a different person.
In 1722, James was imprisoned for three weeks. The reason was the appearance of materials that were unpleasant for the governor. While his brother was in prison, Benjamin took over the management and wrote letters on behalf of the same woman. They said that there can be no wisdom without freedom of thought and no social freedom without freedom of speech.
A new beginning in another city
Benjamin decided that he should start looking for his identity at an early age. For this, he went to Philadelphia at 17. A young man went to a new place and wanted to start his life from scratch in a new place where no one knew him. To earn his living, he started working in a few printing houses, since he had professional experience in this area. However, he was not satisfied with the prospects of his future career. Later, in 1726, he began working for the merchant Thomas Denham. The boy was his clerk, shopkeeper and accountant.
In 1728, he launched his own project, as he knew what a publishing house should look like. Together with a partner, Hugh Meredith, they founded The Pennsylvania Gazette, where our hero became a publisher a year later. With its help, he could promote local reforms, agitations and various initiatives. Such work brought him significant respect in society. He tried to teach others morality and influence people’s lives because he considered himself a uniquely qualified person. The man also considered it his duty to help others, so over the years he sponsored two dozen printing houses in different US cities and even in the Caribbean. Before 1755, 8 out of 15 English-language newspapers were created by Franklin or his partners. The man mastered the publishing market very well and became a shark of this business.
Writing did not give Franklin peace. In 1734, he undertook the editing and publication of the first Masonic book in the US. This topic interested him. In the early 1730s, he was initiated into the local Masonic lodge, where he was a member until the end of his life. He also took responsibility for republishing the Constitutions of the Free-Masons. The printing house helped not only in the creation of new books or newspapers. In 1736, Franklin printed a new currency for New Jersey. The process was based on innovative methods of combating counterfeiting and his printing house was engaged in production.
Private life
When Benjamin was only 17 years old, he was charmed by a girl named Deborah Read. At that time, she was only 15 years old. Despite his age, he declared his love. The girl’s mother was not ready to give consent to the marriage. Her husband had just died and she did not want to depart with her daughter. Therefore, the proposal was rejected. This decision led to the suffering of the girl. She married another man. Later, he fled from the accumulated debts and judicial investigation to Barbados. Moreover, he took all of Deborah’s dowry. Deborah did not get a divorce from her husband. She could not marry again, as bigamy was forbidden. She still connected her life with Benjamin. On September 1, 1730, the couple entered into a civil marriage. They began to raise the illegitimate son of Benjamin. Later, they had a son and a daughter together. The son’s fate was tragic, as 4 years after his birth he died of smallpox.
The wife never accompanied her husband on his long journeys because she was scared of the sea. However, there were rumors that they did not often spend time together because of the deceased son. It seems that the husband blamed the wife for his death. She did not allow him to be vaccinated against the disease that later took the child’s life. Benjamin was not even present when his wife died in 1774. He received a letter that the woman fell ill due to a long separation in 1769. Five years later, she died of a stroke. However, Franklin did not respond to all this and returned home only in 1775.
Death of a prominent figure
Benjamin suffered from obesity for a long period of time. This problem led to other health issues. The list of his diseases included gout, due to which he rarely appeared in public from 1787.
Franklin died on April 17, 1790 at the age of 84. It happened at his house in Philadelphia. More than 20,000 people came to the funeral of the outstanding man. After his death, the USA announced two months of mourning across the country.
Benjamin made a great contribution to US history. He was an incredibly erudite man, a writer, inventor, scientist, statesman, politician, publisher and philosopher. The well-known aphorism ‘time is money’ belongs to him. He became one of the Founding Fathers who signed all three of the most important historical documents, including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Treaty of Versailles. His inventions are used by contemporaries, such as positive and negative poles in electricity, lightning rods, bifocal glasses, Franklin’s furnace, etc. The future of the United States could look very different without this person.