Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 October 1895 — LIFE OF FRANKLIN. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

LIFE OF FRANKLIN.

WAS ONE OF THIS COUNTRY’S GREATEST MEN. A Most Interesting Character— He Excelled in More Points than Any Other American and Karned Fame in Whatever Direction He Turned. Man Among Men. It was 105 years ago that Benjamin Franklin died, in some respects the greatest man this country has produced. He was certainly a most interesting one. His life touches so many points of interest, he was so jvroiuinent in many fields that history easily accords him a lofty rank. He was at once a philosopher, statesman, diplomat, scientist, inventor and wit and as a writer of English second to scarcely any. The story of such a life cannot help but be Interesting as illustrative of how much an earnest man can make of himself when to that end he bends every energy of his mind. Franklin’s parents had gone to Bos ton some time before his birth and settled there with a large family of children. Here the subject of this sketch was born In January, 1706. He showed in boyhood a great precocity and eagerly read whatever books he could lay his hands on. His father wanted to send him to Harvard and fit him for the ministry, but felt that this he could not afford in his straitened circumstances and so took him in to his own chandler’s shop to teach him the trade. But Franklin disliked the work, and so was apprenticed to his brother, who had a printing office. In 1821 this brother began publishing the New England Courant, the third paper published in Boston, and Franklin contributed various articles to it. One of these on political matters gave so much offense to the authorities that the young author was threatened with imprisonment. He thought it was a good time for him to get out of Boston, and accordingly he made his way to Philadelphia. His journey to that city was attended

with every sort of inconvenience, but he finally redched there one Sunday morning with just a dollar in his pocket. However, he soon found employment and friends, among them a Mr. Reed, with whose daughter, Deborah, he proceeded at once to fall in love.

Another friend was Sir William Keatli, and this gentleman felt so great an affection for the boy that he offered to set him up in business. He adVised Franklin to go over to England and buy a printing press, promising to pay his expenses and give him letters to some powerful people there. Franklin sailed; but when he arrived in England he found Keith had neither forwarded money as he had promised, or letters, and so he was left absolutely penniless and friendless in a strange land. But Franklin was the last one to be dismayed by such conditions and boldly set to work, both to make friends ami find work. In both he was successful and passed eighteen months in London, during which he saw much and learned a good deal, so that, when he returned to Philadelphia in 1726, he was vastly improved from the youth who had left there so short a time before. Franklin now married Deborah Reed, established a printing business of his own, began the publication of the Pennsylvania Gazette, and set himself to make a worthy position in life. That energy which was so marked a characteristic of Franklin’s nature soon impelled him to take an active part in the political life of his time. He became postmaster of Philadelphia, and so successfully did he conduct the office that it soon became the center of the postal system of the colonies. He proposed to a Congress assembled in Albany the only feasible plan for continental government and he procured the repeal of the hated stamp act. Franklin’s patriotism was often questiqned, for though he desired America ft> be freed from British oppression he was far from wishing to plunge the country

into war if it could possibly be avoided When, however, a conflict became inevitable, Franklin at once embraced the cause of Independence with heart and soul. He was chosen a member of Congress in 1775, and was one of those who drew up the Declaration of Independence which he afterward signed. Later on he was a delegate to that as-

•embly which formed the constitution of the United States. Am a diplomat Franklin ranks deservedly high. The Declaration of Independence made foreign aid for this country absolutely necessary and especially the aid of France, England’s great enemy No man in America was so well fitted as Franklin to undertake a mission to shat country. He had a working knowledge of French and Latin—a thing possessed by but few Americans at that time—aud moreover he had a practical common sense and a grasp of affairs unequnled by auy other man. His work in France was moat brilliant. He managed to secure financial aid for completing the war and setting the government on its feet, and finally secured the treaty of 1753, one of the greatest triumphs of modern diplomacy, whereby both France and England were made friends of America. From his early youth Franklin was Interested in scientific studies, aud the fruit of these was seen in 1742 when he invented a stove which was a marvelous improvement on the methods then employed for heating rooms. Ten years later he showed, by means of a kite, that lightning is a discharge of electricity, and for this thesßoyal Society awarded him a medal. Franklin began to publish an almanac in 1732, which he continued for some years under the

title of Poor Richard’s Almanac. It was filled full of short and pithy business maxims which, if not of great moral value, were singularly shrewd. He also left a charming autobiography which tells the story of his life until 1757. Franklin was buried at Philadelphia near his wife. Their graves are marked by marble slabs. He left behind him the following epitaph, which is often quoted, and has become famous: “The Body of Benjamin Franklin, Printer, like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out and stripped of its lettering and gilding,' lies here food for worms; but the work shall not be lost, for it will, as he believes, appear once more in a new and more elegant edition, revised, and corrected by the author.”

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

FRANKLIN’S BIRTHPLACE, MILK STREET, BOSTON.

WHERE FRANKLIN IS BURIED.