Benjamin Franklin

4 Pages 951 Words

Benjamin Franklin was a famous printer, author, inventor, scientist, public servant and diplomat. He was commonly called “the first civilized American.” Franklin was born on the seventeenth day of January in 1706, on Milk Street in Boston Mass., he was his parents fifteenth child. Benjamin obviously respected his father, who probably taught him to read, so early that he could not remember learning it. While he was a young boy, A private teacher, George Brownell took Benjamin on. “Under him I acquired fair Writhing pretty soon, but I fail’d in the Arithmetic & made no Progress in it.” (Franklin’s Memoirs, ed. by Max Farrand, p. 20, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1949.) At 10-years-old he was taken home to assist his father in his business. Benjamin did not like what his father did though, so him and his father took a walk one day around Boston, observing the craftsmen at work and looking for a congenial trade. One of his cousins was a cutler, and that occupation was seriously considered. Franklin’s fondness for books, he decided to sign indentures with his elder brother James, who in 1717 had returned to Boston from London with a printing press.
At the age of seventeen, Benjamin had a trade, he still had much to learn about men and women. He found work in New York, but heard that there might be some in Philadelphia. He roamed Philadelphia for a while, and that’s how he met his soon to be wife, Deborah Read. After looking for a while he was finally employed at Samuel Keimer’s printing shop and rooming Deborah’s home. After some time at that, the provincial governor, Sir William Keith urged him to a business for himself and sent him back to Boston with a letter to his father. His father thought that Benjamin was too young for such a thing, and refused immediate support. He went back to Philadelphia and worked for his friend Denham for about 4 months until Denham unexpectedly died. After t...