{"id":121,"date":"2010-07-16T19:46:54","date_gmt":"2010-07-16T19:46:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/infj.net\/smith\/?page_id=121"},"modified":"2013-01-11T18:31:52","modified_gmt":"2013-01-11T18:31:52","slug":"ben-franklin","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/smithrebellion1765.com\/?page_id=121","title":{"rendered":"Ben Franklin"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Ben<\/a><\/dt>\n
Ben Franklin – Source: http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/nostri-imago\/3419077774\/<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

Benjamin Franklin<\/strong> was an author, printer, scientist, inventor and one of the most astute politicians of his time.\u00a0 Franklin\u2019s family members were devout puritans in Massachusetts counting such distinguished people as the Minister Cotton Mather among their friends.\u00a0 Although Franklin became a non denominational Christian when he was older his Calvinist upbringing can be seen in his beliefs in thrift, hard work, education, sense of community and opposition to tyranny of all times.<\/p>\n

Franklin was born on January 17, 1706 in Boston.\u00a0 His family\u2019s original plans for him included schooling to become a member of the clergy, however, his father was unable to pay for schooling past age ten.\u00a0 At twelve he became an apprentice to his brother James who was a Boston printer.\u00a0 When Benjamin was denied a chance to write a letter to his brother\u2019s newspaper titled, The New England Courant<\/em>, he assumed the name \u201cMrs. Dogood\u201d, a name he admitted taking from Cotton Mather\u2019s teachings about community service.\u00a0 Under this name several of his letters were printed and were very popular.\u00a0 Eventually Franklin left his brother\u2019s apprenticeship without permission which made him the equivalent of a fugitive indentured servant.<\/p>\n

Franklin made his way to Philadelphia where he took up printing, although without much success due to financial backers who did not make good on promises.\u00a0 In 1727 he created a political discussion group of like minded young Philadelphians.\u00a0 This group was named the \u201cJunto\u201d.\u00a0 Pooling their financial resources to purchase books, this group eventually created the library society of Philadelphia that today has over 500,000 rare books in its collections.<\/p>\n

In 1729 Franklin began to publish the Pennsylvania Gazette<\/em>.\u00a0 Although he would go on from this beginning to do many things he continued to sign many of his letters B. Franklin, Printer.<\/p>\n

In 1730 Franklin established his common law marriage to Debra Read.\u00a0 He had asked for her hand in marriage before and her family refused because at the time Franklin was poor.\u00a0 She went on to marry another man who ran off to the Caribbean and because of marriage laws at the time she and Franklin were unable to marry.<\/p>\n

Franklin had an illegitimate child named William who would become Franklin\u2019s partner in land speculation schemes as well as colonial governor of New Jersey.\u00a0 He also had a son and a daughter by Debra Read.\u00a0 Their son Francis died of small pox at age four.\u00a0 Daughter Sarah married Richard Bache and had seven children.<\/p>\n

William and his father had an irreconcilable falling out over the American Revolution.\u00a0 William remained loyal to the crown to the point of aiding the British War effort and eventually returned to England.\u00a0 William and his father never communicated again.<\/p>\n

In 1733 Franklin began to publish Poor Richard\u2019s Almanac<\/em>.\u00a0 This document gave America some of its most memorable examples of Franklin\u2019s folk wisdom, such as, \u201cA penny saved is two pence dear,\u201d often misquoted as \u201cA penny save is a penny earned.\u201d<\/p>\n

Franklin is less well known today for his inventions which he never patented because he believed they were service he owed the community.\u00a0 His most famous inventions include the lightening rod, Franklin stove, bifocal glasses, and the first flexible urinary catheter.<\/p>\n

In 1743 Franklin founded the American Philosophical Society.\u00a0 The purpose of this group was to help scientists evaluate discoveries and review ideas.<\/p>\n

In 1748 Franklin retired from printing and created a partnership with David Hall that provided him with half of the printing shop\u2019s profits for the next eighteen years.\u00a0 One of the things Franklin took part in was the creation of one of the first volunteer fire fighting companies in America known as the Union Fire Company.\u00a0 He also began to print paper currency for the colony of New Jersey in which he used new anti counterfeiting technologies he had designed.<\/p>\n

This began his interest in currency ideas that led ultimately to his plans for developing a national currency backed by a land bank which he advocated to British Prime Minister George Grenville as an alternative to the proposed Stamp Act in 1765.<\/p>\n

This period after Franklin retired from printing marked the beginning of his interest in politics.\u00a0 He was first elected to the Provincial Assembly in 1751.\u00a0 In 1756 he organized the Pennsylvania Militia for its participation in the French and Indian War.\u00a0 He was elected colonel of this militia but declined the honor.<\/p>\n

His dissatisfaction with the Penn\u2019s leadership and his desire to seek a Royal governor in their place is part of the reason he first became an agent of the Pennsylvania Assembly to the British Parliament.\u00a0 In 1763 – 1764 Franklin made the only miscalculation of his long and storied career.<\/p>\n

In December of 1763 the Paxton Boys brutally murdered twenty peaceful Conestoga Indians over the frontier people\u2019s feelings of dissatisfaction over the Penns apparent preferential treatment of the Indians and their seeming neglect of the frontier settlers.\u00a0 Franklin wrote a scathing indictment of this event.<\/p>\n

The climax of the Paxton Boys Rebellion was their march on Philadelphia that threatened to plunge the colony into civil war.\u00a0 Franklin persuaded the Paxtons to go home peacefully and make their grievances to the Pennsylvania Assembly in writing so that they could be heard.\u00a0 The Paxtons in February 1764 produced a document called the Declaration and Remonstrance in which they listed their grievances.\u00a0 Today we know that Franklin aided in the writing of this document possibly with the help of the Reverend William Smith.\u00a0 Franklin used the knowledge gained from assisting the Paxtons to\u00a0write their grievances to campaign on the frontier of Pennsylvania for the replacement of the Penns with a Royal governor.\u00a0 This made the election to the Provincial Assembly a referendum on John Penn\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n

What Franklin didn\u2019t count on was the colony\u2019s fear of a Royal governor\u2019s infringement on their political and religious freedoms being greater than the people\u2019s dissatisfaction with Penn\u2019s leadership.\u00a0 Franklin lost his seat in the Provincial Assembly in October of 1764.\u00a0 The Provincial Assembly immediately voted to make him the Pennsylvania agent to the British Parliament the second time with the goal of getting a Royal governor appointed.<\/p>\n

When Franklin presented the Pennsylvania petition Parliament immediately denied it.\u00a0 Franklin then became preoccupied with the idea of pushing his national currency for America based on a land bank.\u00a0 He proposed this as an alternative to the Stamp Act because the British could pay off their financial deficit with the interest payments on loans collected from the bank.\u00a0 The Black Boys Sideling Hill affair on March 6, 1765 and its effect on the land acquisition plans of George Croghan, Franklin and others helped end the whole land bank proposal.<\/p>\n

The violent reaction in the colonies to Prime Minister Grenville\u2019s Stamp Act had not been expected by either the British or Franklin.\u00a0 Franklin had asked for the appointment of a friend to be Philadelphia\u2019s stamp collector which gave the appearance that he agreed with the Stamp Act.\u00a0 However, Ben Franklin changed his mind on the Stamp Act shortly after Philadelphia mobs threatened to destroy his property.<\/p>\n

Undaunted by the end of his land bank plan Franklin went to William Strahan, printer of the London Chronicle, to engage him to print an article from one or several letters regarding Smith\u2019s Black faced Boys Rebellion and the March 6, 1765 burning of the trade goods at Sideling Hill in an effort to spark a new consideration of the petition for a Royal governor for Pennsylvania, by portraying the entire colony as being out of the Penn\u2019s control.\u00a0 As the Revolutionary War approached Franklin obtained the personal letters of Massachusetts\u2019s Governor Thomas Hutchinson and Lt. Governor Andrew Oliver which proved that both men had been pushing London to crack down on the residence of Boston because of their mob like behavior.\u00a0 Franklin sent these letters to America where they created increased demands for independence from England.\u00a0 For this, Franklin was forced to leave London in March 1775.\u00a0 By the time he returned to the colonies the Revolution had already begun.\u00a0 He was chosen immediately to be a delegate to the Continental Congress where he was one of five men who helped draft the Declaration of Independence.\u00a0 He was then sent to be America\u2019s ambassador to France during the Revolutionary War.<\/p>\n

He was the only founding father who was a signatory on all four major documents that created the United States, the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Paris, and the Alliance with France, and the United States Constitution.\u00a0 At the end of his life Franklin took up the cause that would animate the next eighty plus years of American History, the abolition of slavery.\u00a0 Franklin died in 1795.<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Benjamin Franklin\u00a0in Wikipedia. \u00a0http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ben_Franklin<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Peaceable Kingdom Lost:\u00a0 The Paxton Boys and the Destruction of William Penn\u2019s Holy Experiment<\/em>. \u00a0Kenny, Kevin. \u00a0Oxford University Press. \u00a0New York, NY 10016.\u00a0 2009<\/span><\/p>\n

American Leviathan:\u00a0 Empire, Nation, and Revolutionary Frontier. \u00a0<\/em>Griffin, Patrick. \u00a0Hill and Wang a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.\u00a0 New York, NY. 10003.\u00a0 2007<\/span><\/p>\n

Taming Democracy:\u00a0 “The People” the Founders and the Troubled Ending of the American Revolution<\/em>.\u00a0 Bouton, Terry. \u00a0Oxford University Press, New York, NY 10016.\u00a0 2007<\/span><\/p>\n

The Paxton Boys and the Pamphlet Frenzy:\u00a0 Politics, Religion, and Social Structure in Eighteenth Century Pennsylvania. \u00a0<\/em>Alexandra Mancini http:\/\/www.publication.Villanova.edu\/Concept\/2007\/07_papers_html\/Mancini-Paxtonboy<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Pennsylvania Archives. <\/em>\u00a0edited by Samuel Hazard. Volume IV. \u00a0Joseph Cevern & Co.\u00a0 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ben Franklin – Source: http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/nostri-imago\/3419077774\/ Benjamin Franklin was an author, printer, scientist, inventor and one of the most astute politicians of his time.\u00a0 Franklin\u2019s family members were devout puritans in Massachusetts counting such distinguished people as the Minister Cotton Mather … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":43,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-121","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smithrebellion1765.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smithrebellion1765.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smithrebellion1765.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smithrebellion1765.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smithrebellion1765.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=121"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/smithrebellion1765.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":230,"href":"https:\/\/smithrebellion1765.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/121\/revisions\/230"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smithrebellion1765.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/43"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smithrebellion1765.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}