Statesman, Inventor, Author
Statesman, Inventor, Author
Benjamin Franklin was quite an interesting man who knew how to do many things, and did them well!
Besides his well known experiment that proved that lightning is electricity, he was the creator of hundreds of useful inventions. The Franklin stove gave off more heat and used much less fuel than other stoves. His lightning rod saved many buildings from fires caused by lightning.
He was a wise man and lived a long life (1706-1790). He authored the popular Poor Richard's Almanac, full of his wise sayings and wit, and his Autobiography.
As a statesman, he helped form the United States. He contributed to the writing, and was one of the signers of the Constitution of the United States. He also signed the Declaration of Independence.
He helped establish Pennsylvania's first university, and America's first city hospital. He also established the first lending library in the early colonies, and the first fire department.
The son of a candle maker, Benjamin was the fifteenth child born of seventeen.* He was a good reader starting at age four, but poor in arithmetic. At age ten he was kept home and helped his father with candle making, which he didn't like. Believing that "the doors of wisdom are never shut," he continued to read every book that he could get his hands on. He later taught himself the arithmetic that he had never mastered as a child, and educated himself with experience, and the wisdom of great authors.
He was apprenticed to an older brother, James, and learned the printing trade. The two brothers got along poorly. It was there that his first writings were published in the New England Courant, some of which unknown to James were submitted under his alias "Silence Dogood." His writing blossomed, and readers loved his letters. James was not smiling when he found out the true author to these letters was his clever young brother!
After a while, Ben left the printing shop and ended up in Philadelphia, in the colony of Pennsylvania. In the years following, Benjamin Franklin made his mark as the distinguished citizen of the world that he would become.
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"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." Ecclesiastes 9:10
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