Benjamin Franklin is a popular American leading writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and politician.
He was born on 17 January 1706, in Milk Street, Boston, Massachusetts, United States. He died at the age of 84 on 17 April 1790 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.
During his lifetime he got married to Deborah Read between 1730 to 1774.
William Franklin, Sarah Franklin Bache, and Francis Folger Franklin are Benjamin Franklin’s children.
Franklin founded several organizations including University of Pennsylvania, American Philosophical Society, and others.
William Temple Franklin, Benjamin Franklin Bache, and Louis Franklin Bache are Benjamin Franklin’s grandchild. Likewise, Mary Morrell Folger, Jane White Franklin, Peter Folger, and Thomas Franklin are Benjamin Franklin’s grandparents.
Wiki
Full Name: Benjamin Franklin
Nickname: Ben Franklin
Pseudonym: Richard Saunders
Date of Birth: January 17 [January 6, Old Style], 1706, Boston, Massachusetts [U.S.]
Died: April 17, 1790, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. (aged 84)
Title / Office: Continental Congress (1775-1775), United States
Founder: American Philosophical Society
Awards And Honors: Hall of Fame (1900) Copley Medal (1753)
Benjamin Franklin Biography And Early Life
According to the available information, Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17, 1706, in Boston, now known as the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
His father was an English-born soap and candlemaker Josiah Franklin that had seven children with first wife, Anne Child, also 10 more with second wife, Abiah Folger. Franklin was his 15th child and youngest son.
Benjamin learned to read at every young age and despite his success at the Boston Latin School, he stopped his schooling at 10 to work in his cash-strapped father’s candle and soap shop.
He was dipping wax and cutting wicks didn’t fire the young boy’s imagination.
Josiah apprenticed 12-year-old Franklin at the print shop run by his older brother James.
Although James mistreated and beat Benjamin, he learned a great deal about newspaper publishing and used a similar brand of subversive politics under the printer’s tutelage.
Personal Life
In 1723, after Franklin relocated from Boston to Philadelphia, he was accommodated in the house of John Read, where he met his landlord’s daughter Deborah.
When he returned to Philadelphia in 1726, he discovered that Deborah had married in the interim, just to be abandoned by her husband a few months after their wedding.
Benjamin rekindled his romance with Deborah Read so he took her as his common-law wife in 1730. At this moment, Franklin and Read have a son, William, out of wedlock.
Their first son, Francis, was born in 1732, unfortunate he died four years later of smallpox. Both Benjamin Franklin and his wife have one daughter, Sarah, who was born in 1743.
Franklin relocated to London twice, in 1757 and 1764, it was without Deborah, because she refused to leave Philadelphia. During his second stay was the last time Benjamin Franklin and Read saw each other.
Franklin didn’t return home before Deborah died in 1774 at the age of 66.
Franklin’s son William took office as New Jersey’s royal governor in 1762, the position his father arranged through his connections in the British government.
Franklin’s support for the patriot cause put him at odds with his son. When the New Jersey militia stripped William Franklin of his post as royal governor and imprisoned him in 1776, his father didn’t intercede on his behalf.
Inventions
Benjamin Franklin is a great inventor and scientist, he was responsible for the following inventions.
- Rocking chair
- Flexible catheter
- American penny
- Bifocals
- Franklin stove
Books
These are some of the popular books written by Benjamin Franklin
- The Life of Benjamin Franklin, Volume 1
- Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
- A Little Revenge: Benjamin Franklin and His Son
- The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin
- Benjamin Franklin in London
- Young Benjamin Franklin: The Birth of Ingenuity
- Benjamin Franklin: The Religious Life of a Founding Father
- The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin Living in London
Franklin was encouraged by the then Pennsylvania Governor William Keith to establish his print shop, so he went to London in 1724 to purchase supplies from stationers, booksellers and printers.
When he arrived in England,, he felt duped when Keith’s letters of introduction never arrived as promised.
He was forced to find work at London’s print shops, but took complete advantage of the city’s pleasures by attending theater performances, even mingling with the locals in coffee houses and having the opportunity to read.
Benjamin Franklin created his personal wooden flippers, and taught himself how to swim. He performed long-distance swims on the Thames River. Franklin was inducted as an honorary member of the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1968.
In 1725 Franklin published his first pamphlet, “A Dissertation upon Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain,” in the book he argued that humans lack free will and, so, are not morally responsible for their actions.