Benjamin Franklin, one of the most
famous of our Founding Fathers and a signer of the United States Constitution,
was born January 17, 1706, on Milk Street in Boston, Massachusetts.
Benjamin’s
father, Josiah Franklin, was born at Ecton, Northamptonshire, England, on
December 23, 1657, the son of Jane White and Thomas Franklin, a
blacksmith-farmer. Benjamin’s mother,
Abiah Folger, was born on August 15, 1667, in Nantucket, Massachusetts, the
daughter of Peter Folger, a miller and schoolteacher, and his wife Mary
Morrill, a former indentured servant.
Josiah
Franklin had a large family of seventeen children. He married Anne Child, in about 1677 in Ecton
and immigrated with her to Boston in 1683 with their three children; they had
four children after arriving in America.
After Anne’s death, Josiah married Abiah Folger on July 9, 1689, in the
Old South Meeting House by Samuel Willard.
Benjamin was the eighth child of Abiah and Josiah; however, he was
Josiah’s fifteenth child and tenth and last son.
Abiah
Folger Franklin was born into one of the Puritan families that fled from
England when King Charles I began persecuting Puritans. They immigrated to Massachusetts in 1635 in
order to establish a purified Congregationalist Christianity there. Abiah’s father was “the sort of rebel
destined to transform colonial America.” He was clerk of the court when he was
jailed for defending middle-class shopkeepers and artisans who were in conflict
with wealthy landowners and disobeying the local magistrate in doing so. Benjamin Franklin followed in his
grandfather’s footsteps while battling the wealthy Penn family that owned the Pennsylvania
Colony.
Benjamin
was never ashamed of his roots in the working class and became famous due to
his willingness to work and try new things.
He became a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician,
postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman
and diplomat. Franklin was a “major
figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his
discoveries and theories regarding electricity.
He invented the lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, a carriage
odometer, and the glass `armonica’. He
facilitated many civic organizations, including a fire department and a
university.”
Benjamin
Franklin is known as “The First American” for his early and tireless campaign
for colonial unity and as an author and spokesman for several colonies while in
London. While serving as the “first
United States Ambassador to France, he exemplified the emerging American
nation. Franklin was foundational in
defining the American ethos as a marriage of the practical values of thrift,
hard work, education, community spirit, self-governing institutions, and
opposition to authoritarianism both political and religious, with the
scientific and tolerant values of the Enlightenment. In the words of historian Henry Steele
Commager, `In a Franklin could be merged the virtues of Puritanism without its
defects, the illumination of the Enlightenment without its heat.” To Walter Isaacson, this makes Franklin, `the
most accomplished American of his age and the most influential in inventing the
type of society America would become.’”
As
the British postmaster in the colonies for many years, Franklin set up the
first national communications network.
He was also active in affairs and politics on the community, colonial,
state, national, and international levels.
He served as Governor of Pennsylvania from 1785 to 1788. He became “one of the most prominent
abolitionists” when he freed his slaves toward the end of his life.
Franklin
is “one of America’s most influential Founding Fathers” because of his colorful
life as well as his legacy of scientific and political achievement. He is honored on coinage, money, warships,
names of many towns, counties, educational institutions, namesakes, and
companies. Even two centuries after his
death, he is honored in countless cultural references.
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