Benjamin Franklin:  Perhaps the smartest man in the colonies and certainly the most famous. He came to embody the Enlightenment in America as a man of science and letters, and as a deist.
    Born in Boston, he was apprenticed to his older brother at the age of twelve to learn the trade of printing. Naturally intelligent, he spent his free time reading books at the print shop and developed his writing skills. Even at the young age of sixteen, he showed tremendous promise as a humorist and social observer and critic, writing a series of editorials under the guise of a feminist named Silence Dogood. He fled his brother's shop and wound up in Philadelphia where he began work as a printer. An extended (and licentious) stay in England in his late teens gave Franklin a new outlook on the world. He returned to America determined to make a successful life in business.
    He purchased a print shop and the Pennsylvania Gazette. He turned the newspaper into a great success by offering occasionally sensational or even fictional stories for the amusement of readers. He also began publishing Poor Richard's Almanack, an annual journal that amid its accounts of holidays or weather forecasts included witty and wise sayings. Among them were such memorable teachings as: "A penny saved is a penny earned;" "the rotten apple spoils his companion;"  "God heals and the doctor takes the fee;" and a series of tutorials to labor: "a used key is always bright;" "never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today;" "the sleeping fox catches no poultry;" and "there will be sleeping enough in the grave."
    He developed important business connections in Philadelphia and organized a volunteer society called the "Junta." Part debating society, part community-action group, the Junta created a volunteer fire department (the first in the colonies), a lending library (the first in the colonies; members paid a fee to join and be able to take out books), paved and cleaned the streets of Philadelphia, and established a college that would become the University of Pennsylvania. He helped organize the American Philosophical Society; modeled after the Royal Society, it funded geographical explorations and scientific research
    In his mid-forties, he sold his interests in these publications making of himself a wealthy man and began to pursue his true interest: science. Necessity being the mother of invention, Franklin devised numerous very practical inventions, including: the bifocal lens (so that one wouldn't have to keep switching spectacles to read and see at a distance); the Franklin stove (a small fireplace that would generate great heat with minimal fuel--later inventors modified the stove and greatly improved on Franklin's idea); swim fins (small rounded fins that fit onto one's hands like gloves); and the odometer (to measure distance and speed up the public mails) among other things. His greatest scientific achievement, however, related to the studies of electricity and weather. His most famous experiment involved the discovery that lightning was really electrified air. From his research he developed many theories that helped future scientists advance our knowledge and control of electricity. He also created the lightning rod, a vitally important invention which dramatically reduced the danger of fires started by lightning hitting homes, barns, and other buildings.
    His life in public service culminated in his work as a statesman favoring colonial unity and then colonial independence. He was one of the first to see the need for the colonies to unite for their mutual protection. As the conflict between America and the mother country grew, he represented various colonies in the halls of power in England. As a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, he created an alliance with John Adams that advanced the cause of independence and he helped write the Declaration of Independence. As representative of the U.S. in France, in 1778, he negotiated the alliance that would enable America to win its independence with help from the French military. He also negotiated the treaty that would end the war in 1783. He continued his service in 1787, at the age of 81, when he represented Pennsylvania at the Constitutional Convention. Although he did not add dramatically to the document, his presence gave the convention a legitimacy that it would not have had were he absent from it.
    He died in 1790 at the age of 84. He is buried in Philadelphia's Christ Church Burial Ground.

The Franklin Timeline

1706       January 17. Born in Boston, the youngest son of Josiah and Abiah (Folger) Franklin. (January
                6, 1705 by "Old Style" reckoning).

1715       Final formal year of schooling; heard Increase Mather preach

1717       Begins reading Plutarch, Defoe, and Cotton Mather; invents a pair of swim fins for his hands

1718       Apprenticed to his brother James, a printer.

1720       Moved away from home into a boarding house; stopped attending church so he could use Sunday to study

1721       Brother James Franklin starts publishing The New England Courant; becomes "a thorough Deist"

1722       Becomes a vegetarian (so he can save money and buy more books)

1723       Takes over the publishing of the Courant after brother James is jailed due to "contempt" charges. (Sept.) Runs away from apprenticeship, goes to New York and then to Philadelphia, where he gains employment as a printer. Takes lodging with John Read whose daughter Deborah will become Franklin's wife in 1730

1724       Returns home to Boston to try and borrow money from his father to start print shop. Is denied. Returns to Philadelphia and courts Deborah Read. Travels to London to buy printing equipment. Stays in London working as a printer working for Samuel Palmer.

1725       Publishes his first pamphlet: "A Dissertation upon Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain"; "sows his wild oats": attends theater, reads voraciously, and hangs out at coffee houses

1726       In July, returns to Philadelphia and works for Thomas Denham, a merchant who had loaned him the money to return home. Franklin works as a bookkeeper and shopkeeper in a store which sells imported clothes and hardware.

1727       Suffers first pleurisy attack; it is in 1727 or 1728 that Franklin has an affair with a woman that results in the birth of his illegitimate son William in 1728 or 1729; helps to establish the Junto, a a society of young men who met together on Friday evenings for "self-improvement, study, mutual aid, and conviviality."

1728       In June, establishes a Philadelphia printing partnership with Hugh Meredith; composes "Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion"

1729       Purchases The Pennsylvania Gazette from Samuel Keimer

1730       Elected the official printer for Pennsylvania; takes a common law wife Deborah Read Rogers on 9/1; buys out his printing partner Hugh Meredith; fire destroys the southern part of Philadelphia and Franklin starts agitating for fire protection programs

1731        Joins the St. Johns Freemasons Lodge; draws up the Library Company's articles of association; prints an article in the Gazette on the imminent passage of the "mortifying" Molasses Act

1732        Birth of his son Francis Folger; publishes the first edition of Poor Richard's Almanack on December 28

1734        Is elected Grand Master of the Grand Masonic Lodge of Masons of PA; buys property on Philadelphia's Market Street. Eventually he will put together several lots of land on Market Street. These will house his print shop and retail space. Today, this property forms Franklin Court; bribes post riders to carry his PA Gazette. Postmaster Andrew Bradford had forbidden riders to carry the Gazette.

1735        Brother James Franklin dies; Benjamin sends his widow 500 copies of Poor Richard for free so she can make money by selling them

1736        Named Clerk of the PA Assembly; son Francis (Franky) Folger dies at age 4 of smallpox; organizes the Union Fire Company (first volunteer fire department in colonies; prints "A Treaty of Friendship held with the Chiefs of the Six Nations at Philadelphia"

1737        Appointed Postmaster of Philadelphia

1739        The Great Awakening: George Whitefield arrives in Philadelphia for the first time. Franklin leads an environmental protest against polluting "Slaughter-Houses, Tan-Yards, Skinner Lime-Pits, &c. erected on the publick Dock, and Streets, adjacent"

1740        Official printer for New Jersey; prints much material for Whitefield.

1741        Advertises the Pennsylvania Stove

1742        Franklin organized and publicized a project to sponsor plant collecting trips by renowned botanist John Bartram.

1743        Attends Archibald Spencer's Boston lectures on natural philosophy (including electricity); writes "A Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge" (the founding document of the prototype of the American Philosophical Society); daughter Sally born and baptized at Christ Church

1744        The American Philosophical Society begins meeting

1746        Begins extensive electrical experiments

1747        Franklin writes "The Plain Truth," a pamphlet arguing for better military preparedness in PA. In the pamphlet is the first political cartoon published in America. Declares of his research into electricity, "For my own part, I never was before engaged in any study that so totally engrossed my attention and my time as this has lately done.

1748        Becomes a soldier in the PA militia after turning down a commission as a Colonel citing military inexperience.

1752       Conducts kite experiment; receives Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London for research in electricity; becomes Deputy Postmaster General of North America; writes a plan for a union of the colonies for security and defense.

1752        Helps found the Philadelphia Contributionship for Insuring of Houses from Loss Against Fire

1753        Receives honorary degrees from Harvard and Yale.

1754        Proposes plan of colonial union at Albany Congress

1757-62    In England as agent for Pennsylvania Assembly, Massachusetts, Georgia, New Jersey

1759        Receives honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland

1762        Mapped Postal routes in the colonies. Invents glass armonica

1764-65    Charts Gulf Stream.

1766        Examined in House of Commons in support of repeal of the Stamp Act

1768-70    Named Colonial Agent for Georgia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.

1771-72    Begins writing his Autobiography.

1775        Elected as a Pennsylvania delegate of Pennsylvania to 2nd Continental Congress; serves as chairman of Pennsylvania Committee of Safety; elected Postmaster General of the Colonies

1776        Presides over Constitutional Convention of PA; serves on a committee of five who draft the Declaration of Independence; arrives in Paris on 12/21 as one of the Commissioners of Congress to the French Court

1777        Begins affair with Madame Brillon

1778        Signs French Alliance

1779-81    Appointed to negotiate peace treaty with England.

1780        Madame Helvetius rejects Franklin's offer of marriage.

1783-84    Signs Treaty of Paris, ending the Revolutionary War; invents bifocal lens

1785-86    Elected President of Pennsylvania Executive Council; invents library chair (chair that converts into a ladder to get books down from high shelves

1789        Writes anti-slavery treatise; becomes president of the Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery

1790        April 17, dies in Philadelphia at the age of 84. 20,000 mourners attend his funeral at Philadelphia's Christ Church Burial Ground.