Brief biographies from American history, for the fifth and sixth grades

by Edna Henry Lee Turpin

Lords Baltimore of Baltimore

An interesting figure in the Stuart court was that of the first Lord Baltimore, the Catholic nobleman through whose interest and influence the colony of Maryland was established. George Calvert—he was not yet Lord Baltimore—entered public life as the secretary of Sir Robert Cecil; he won the favor of King James I. and in 1619 he was knighted and made secretary of state. So far from seeking office, we are informed that “he disabled himself various ways, but specially that he thought himself unworthy to sit in that place so lately possessed by his noble lord and master.”

A few years later he openly connected himself with the Catholics and resigned his office. He did not, however, lose favor with the Protestant king who granted him the title of Baron Baltimore of Baltimore, and confirmed his claim to large estates in Ireland. But George Calvert’s interest lay in another direction and the remainder of his life was given to “that ancient, primitive, and heroic work of planting the world.”

As early as 1609 he had been a member of the Virginia Company and his position as secretary of state made him intimately acquainted with the course of exploration and colonization in the New World. At that time Catholics in England were not allowed liberty of worship. Calvert desired to establish a colony where men, especially those of his own faith, might enjoy the free exercise of their religion. In 1620 he purchased a plantation in Newfoundland and the next year he sent colonists with tools and supplies to found a settlement, which he named Avalon. “Westward Hoe for Avalon,” by Captain Whitbourne, published the next year, described in glowing terms the country with its good fisheries, abundant berries, cherries, and pears, and “red and white damask roses.” In 1623 the king granted a charter giving Lord Baltimore practically royal authority over the province. As a sign of sovereign power, the king of England was to receive a white horse whenever he visited Avalon.

In 1627 Lord Baltimore for the first time crossed the ocean to the province so eloquently described by Whitbourne. He found—a stormy sea beating against a rough peninsula which was broken by stretches of barren sand, tracts of marshes, hills clothed with stunted, cone-bearing trees, and narrow spaces of arable land. Desolate as it was, Lord Baltimore saw Avalon at its best, for it was summer.

In a few weeks he went back to England and the next year he returned to Avalon with his wife and all his family except his eldest son Cecilius or Cecil. The hardships of the long, severe winter and the contests with the French convinced Lord Baltimore that the northern province was no place for his colony—the twenty thousand pounds he had spent on it were wasted. He wrote to the king, complaining that “from the middle of October to the middle of May there is a sad fare of winter upon all this land,” and requesting a grant of land in a more genial climate, to which he might remove his colony of forty-six persons. At first he endeavored to obtain territory south of Virginia, but this was opposed by the Virginia Company which claimed the land and said it was about to send colonists thither. Finally it was decided that it would be well to establish an English colony north of Virginia to keep back the Dutch and the French who were settling territory claimed by England. Lord Baltimore received a grant of land on Chesapeake Bay, extending to the Potomac. But this land he was never to settle or even to see. He died in April, 1632. The grant thus devolved on his son Cecil, a young man of twenty-eight, who carried out the plans so dear to his father.

Cecil, who was the real founder of Maryland, never visited the colony; he sent out settlers and supplies under his younger brother, Leonard. Leonard was the first governor of Maryland, as the land was called in honor of the English queen, Henrietta Maria. The charter given Lord Baltimore granted more absolute power than was ever bestowed on any other English colonist in the New World. “Cecilius, Absolute Lord of Maryland and Avalon,” could make peace or war; he had the law-making power also and the people could merely advise and assent or dissent. The only tribute required was the yearly payment of two Indian arrows to the king and of one-fifth of all the gold and silver found in the land. As soon as the settlers landed, Leonard Calvert established friendly relations with the Indians whom the Englishmen found to “have generous natures and requite any kindness shown them.” The peaceful relations with these Indians, called “Friend Indians” in later treaties, were never broken.

Sailing up St. Mary’s River, the colonists found a place which pleased them as a site for a settlement. They purchased it from the Indians for “axes, hoes, and cloth.” Here St. Mary’s was built in 1634, on the former site of an Indian village.

From the first the policy of the Maryland colony was “peace, unity, and religious toleration.” Until it was established, there was no place in the English colonies in America where Catholics had religious liberty. In the colony on the Potomac, the Catholics enjoyed the free exercise of their religion and granted to others the same privilege. This religious toleration was secured by law in 1649. It was agreed that “no persons professing to believe in Jesus Christ should be molested in their religion.”

The chief trouble of the Maryland colony in its early days was with William Claybourne, a trader from Virginia who had established a settlement and trading-post on Kent’s Island. This was a part of the territory afterwards granted to Lord Baltimore. After much contention and dissension about the matter, in 1646 Claybourne stirred up a rebellion. Governor Calvert, armed with royal authority, took forcible possession of the island. A few months later Calvert died, having appointed as his successor, Thomas Greene, a Catholic and Royalist.

This “land of the sanctuary,” as Maryland was called, grew in wealth and prosperity. In 1656 Hammond described it for the benefit of home-staying Englishmen: “Maryland is (not an Island as is reported, but) part of that main adjoining to Virginia only separated or parted from Virginia, by a river of ten miles broad, called Patomack River,—the commodities and manner of living as in Virginia, the soil somewhat more temperate (as being more northerly) many stately and navigable rivers are contained in it, plentifully stored with wholesome springs, rich and pleasant soil, and so that its extraordinary goodness hath made it rather desired then envied.”

William Penn
A Famous Quaker

About the middle of the seventeenth century a good deal of attention was attracted in England to the religious sect called Quakers, Professors, Friends, or Children of the Light. One of their ablest exponents was George Fox. He was grave and temperate in life, but so firm that it was said of him, “If George says verily there is no altering him.” “Verily” was the strongest word of assent he permitted himself, obeying literally the Bible command, “Swear not at all.”

The Quakers thought that the Bible only ought to be the rule for men and churches, that there should be no set forms of worship, and that men should pray and preach, not at appointed times, but only as moved by the Spirit. They believed that every man is led by the “inward light,” or the Spirit of God, saying, “He that gave us an outward luminary for our bodies, hath given us an inward one for our minds to act by.” The Quakers refused to pay tithes and taxes to support the established church and, thinking it wrong to fight, they refused to serve in the army. At that time hats were worn indoors as well as out, and men took them off as a token of respect. The Quaker refused to pull off their hats to men of any rank, uncovering only in prayer. “Hat honor was invented by men in the Fall,” they said. These Quakers were recognized by their sober attire,—broad-brimmed hats and sober-colored clothes,—and by their use of “thee” and “thou” and “thine” instead of “you” and “yours.” To use the plural forms in addressing one person, they said, was contrary to grammar, to Biblical usage, and to truth.

WILLIAM PENN

When George Fox, a lad of twenty, was preaching this faith, there was born in England one who was to spread it abroad in the New World. This was William Penn. His father, Sir William Penn, was an Admiral in the royal navy and was anxious to see his son master of an estate and a title. All these plans were upset by the son who at twenty-four joined the Quakers. His father summoned him to London to argue with him, but the youth stood firm. He appeared covered before his father. The old Admiral tried to effect a compromise and get him to take off his hat to his father, the king, and the Duke of York, but he refused. He would not yield one point of the Quaker customs, dress, language, or faith. As he would not yield, his father in the end did so, and paid his fines.

The Quakers were so beset at home that Penn and others wished to establish for them a refuge in the New World. Penn became one of the owners of the colony of West New Jersey to which many Quakers went. But he was not satisfied with his partnership here and desired a province and colony of his own. This was not difficult to acquire. King Charles II., who owed Admiral Penn’s estate sixteen thousand pounds, had little gold or silver in his treasury and claimed much land in the New World. He willingly settled his debt by granting William Penn the land west of the Delaware; for this Penn was to pay yearly two beaver skins, and one-fifth of all the gold and silver found in the colony. Penn wished to call this land of woods Sylvania, and the king added to the name that of his old friend, the Admiral, calling it Pennsylvania.

The grant was made in 1680; two years later, in order to have an outlet to the sea, Penn secured a grant of the land which afterwards formed the state of Delaware. The very year that this second grant was made, many Quakers sailed to make their home in the new land. In the fall and winter of 1682, twenty-three ships came, bringing settlers to the Quaker colony. The next year Penn could say, “I have led the greatest colony into America that ever any man did upon a private credit, and the most prosperous beginnings that ever were in it are to be found among us.” In three years there were more than seven thousand settlers,—English, French, Dutch, Swedes, men of different races and various creeds.

Penn made it from the first a “free colony for all mankind,” assuring the people “You shall be governed by laws of your own making. I shall not usurp the right of any or oppress his person.” He put the government in the hands of a governor and of a council and general assembly chosen by freemen. Laws were passed forbidding drunkenness, dueling, stage plays, and card playing. Death, which was then in England the penalty for theft and many other offences, in Pennsylvania was inflicted only as punishment for wilful murder, according to the law of God, as the Quakers understood it.

Penn founded his colony on principles of peace and fairness to the Indians. Under a great elm-tree at Shakamaxon, afterwards Kensington, he made with the natives, a treaty of peace and friendship “never sworn to and never broken;” the red man was granted equal rights with the white, and they were to be friends “while the creeks and rivers run and while the sun, moon, and stars endure.” The Indians with whom the Pennsylvania colonists were brought in contact were the mild and peace-loving Delawares. Fortunately for the Quakers, the fierce Susquehannocks, beaten by the Five Nations, had six years before gone southward.

Penn laid out the site of a town at the confluence of the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers. He named it Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. It was laid out with broad fair streets for he wished it to be a “fair and green country town.”

Two years later, Penn sailed back to England to decide a dispute about the boundary line between Pennsylvania and Maryland. It was fifteen years before he revisited his colony. He endeavored to see it governed well, but from a distance this was difficult. There were men hard to control. “For the love of God, me, and the poor country, be not so governmentish, so uneasy, and open in your dissatisfaction,” he wrote.

When Penn returned in 1699 it was with the plan of spending his remaining days in his colony. But two years later he learned that there was a plan afoot to turn his province into a crown territory and he sailed back to England to protect his rights. One matter after another came up to detain him and he remained in England till his death in July, 1718.

James Edward Oglethorpe
The Founder of Georgia

The colony of Georgia was the last founded of the thirteen original colonies. It was established by Oglethorpe, a man of noble birth who was animated by principles of philanthropy and patriotism.

James Edward Oglethorpe was born in London, about 1688. When a youth he entered the army and fought bravely against the Turks for several years. After his return home his attention was attracted and his sympathy aroused by the condition of prisoners in England, especially of poor debtors. In those days debt was regarded and punished as a crime; debtors were confined in prisons with murderers and thieves. It is thought that Oglethorpe’s attention was specially drawn to the matter by the sad case of one of his friends. This man, being unable to pay his debts, was imprisoned and loaded with chains; unable to pay even the fees required by the jailer, he was confined in a miserable prison where smallpox was raging, caught the disease, and died.

JAMES EDWARD OGLETHORPE

Oglethorpe investigated the conditions of prison life in England and found them bad and brutal beyond description. Most of the prisons were filthy dens in which men, women, and children were herded together, the child who had stolen a loaf of bread side by side with a brutal murderer. Oglethorpe brought the subject before parliament and succeeded in having a committee appointed to investigate the matter and take steps to limit the corruption and cruelty of the officials.

Besides attempting to relieve their condition at home, Oglethorpe began to plan an asylum abroad for the poor debtors and for persecuted sects. He wished to establish a place where those who were unfortunate and discouraged could begin life anew. It seemed to Oglethorpe that England would derive many benefits from such a colony as he planned. The country would be relieved of the burden of supporting unfortunate men who there would become self-supporting. New industries might be developed,—especially the culture of silk worms in which he was much interested. He wished to plant this settlement in the southern regions claimed by England, making it a military colony to prevent the encroachments of Spain and to protect the other English colonies.

In June, 1732, Oglethorpe and twenty associates obtained a grant of the land lying between the Savannah and Altamaha rivers and extending westward to the Pacific Ocean, according to the usual terms of the grants of the times. The English claimed this land by virtue of the expeditions of Sir Walter Raleigh and they were desirous to occupy it before it was seized by the Spanish in Florida or the French on the Mississippi. In honor of the reigning King George II., the territory was named Georgia.

Oglethorpe agreed with Bacon that “it is a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of people and wicked condemned men to be the people whom you plant,” and he tried to select men who were unfortunate rather than wicked. Every opportunity was to be given the people to reform and to build up homes and fortunes. Oglethorpe went as governor of the colony, hoping by his personal aid and supervision to encourage and direct the people.

For military reasons, Oglethorpe urged that negro slavery be prohibited and that rum should not be brought into the colony. Among the men who aided in establishing and directing the colony were John and Charles Wesley, and George Whitefield, the famous Methodist clergymen.

In the winter of 1733, the colonists reached the New World and selected for their settlement a place on the Savannah River, a few miles from the sea. The Indians were conciliated with gifts and kindly treatment and assurances that their rights should be regarded. One of the desires of the philanthropic Oglethorpe was to civilize and christianize the natives. In six months there were one hundred and fifty persons in the settlement. They were a turbulent people unaccustomed to labor and with habits of improvidence and idleness. Oglethorpe was kind but firm; he allowed no idlers and provided tasks for even the children. Their neighbors in South Carolina were friendly and helpful, and the colony prospered. In the summer of 1734 Oglethorpe visited England, taking with him as guests several Indian chiefs. Early in February, 1736, he returned to Savannah.

Clear-sighted man of affairs that he was, he realized that a contest with Spain must come sooner or later. He endeavored to put the country in a position of defense. When war was declared between England and Spain in 1739, Oglethorpe had already secured the alliance of the Indian tribes. The Spaniards attacked an English settlement, and in return Oglethorpe captured a Spanish outpost. With his Indian allies, he marched against St. Augustine, but it was too strongly defended to be taken by the forces at his command. Two years later the Spaniards attacked Georgia; by a fortunate union of good chance and good generalship, they were defeated. “The pauper colony,” as it had been called, not only defended itself but saved its neighbor, South Carolina.

After this war was over, Oglethorpe returned to England and never again revisited his colony. About ten years later, the trustees of the colony resigned their patent and Georgia became a royal province.

Oglethorpe made his home in London where he was the friend of Walpole, Goldsmith, Johnson, and other famous men. He died at a ripe old age, having lived to see the colony which he had founded win its independence in the War of the Revolution. When John Adams came to England as minister from the United States, Oglethorpe called “to pay his respects to the first American ambassador and his family, whom he was glad to see in England; he expressed a great esteem and regard for America and much regret at the misunderstandings between the countries and felt very happy to have lived to see a termination of it.”

Philip
An Indian King

The Pilgrims were not the first white men who had visited Massachusetts. Explorers and trading parties had landed on the coast. At one time a fishing party had come to trade for furs and skins, and had carried off five Indians, one of whom was Squanto. Later, another vessel carried off twenty-seven Indians. The red men early learned to distrust and fear the pale faces.

The settlers of Plymouth endeavored to win the friendship of the Indians. They presented knives, copper chains, and other trinkets to Massasoit who was sachem, or chief, of the Indian tribes of the neighborhood, and made a treaty of friendship with him. As long as Massasoit lived, the Indians and the English lived in comparative peace.

But year after year the natives and the colonists became less friendly to each other. The white men came in constantly-increasing numbers and occupied the best of the land. When the Indians had sold it for beads or knives or trinkets, they thought that the English wished it for a season’s hunting and fishing. But the English established farms and villages and towns and took permanent possession. Game and fish grew less plentiful and as the English prospered the Indians grew poorer. The Indians resented being treated as an inferior race by the white people. The Pilgrims resented the savages’ lack of regard for property rights, their gathering fruit and grain and shooting cows like deer. The two races were too different to thrive and prosper side by side. Some of the natives adopted the faith of the white men. These “praying Indians,” as they were called, identified themselves to a great extent with the white people and were regarded as traitors to their own race.

However, there was no open outbreak till after the death of Massasoit. The old sachem left two sons whom the English called Alexander and Philip. Alexander, the elder, succeeded his father as sachem. The English suspected that Alexander was plotting with a hostile tribe against them, and they seized him and carried him as a prisoner to Plymouth. Nothing could be proved against him and he was soon released, but on the way home he died—probably of fever. The Indians, however, thought that he had been poisoned by the white men.

Philip succeeded his brother in authority. He was a renowned warrior, as wise and prudent as he was brave. We are told that instead of treating his wife as a slave, according to Indian custom, he made her his friend and companion. Next to his wife and child, Philip loved the people of his tribe. He saw with grief that his people were constantly growing weaker and the English were constantly increasing in numbers and in strength. He protested against the wrongs of the Englishmen but these wrongs were unredressed. Still, we are told, that he did not favor war; he realized that his people were unable to withstand the English and war would only hasten their ruin.

Against the wishes and commands of Philip, war began, brought on by the excesses of bad men on both sides. In June, 1675, some young Indians burned a village and were attacked by the settlers. The aroused savages went from one bloody deed to another, burning houses and villages, murdering men, women, and children. About the time that the war began, Philip crossed Narragansett Bay and went to a tribe in the Connecticut valley. For nearly a year he was not seen by the English, and we do not know to what extent he countenanced and directed the war that was being waged.

The town of Deerfield was burned and Hadley and Hatfield were attacked. While the settlers at Hadley were in confusion, it is said that a venerable old man suddenly appeared and led them forward to repel the foe. When victory was gained, he disappeared as mysteriously as he had come. It was asserted that this was Goffe, one of the men who had sentenced Charles I. to death. When Charles II. became king, Goffe fled to the New World and lived in seclusion in Connecticut. In “The Gray Champion” Hawthorne tells this story with some changes.

The Narragansett Indians went on the war-path against the white men. Their headquarters were on an island in a swamp which was thought to be inaccessible. Here, in five hundred wigwams, were sheltered the women and children of the tribe and were stored their supplies of corn. By the treachery of one of Philip’s warriors, the path to the island was betrayed to the white men. In the depth of winter the colonists made their way through the swamp to the island, killed men, women, and children without mercy, and burned the fort and the whole settlement. King Philip’s wife and son had been taken prisoners and sent to the Bermudas where they were sold as slaves. Still the Indians refused to submit. One of the warriors who advised surrender was killed by King Philip’s own hand. At last in August, 1676, he was surrounded at his old home, Mount Hope, not far from Providence, Rhode Island, and was shot. His body was cut to pieces and fastened on trees, and his head was exposed on the top of a pole in Plymouth. The Puritans held a thanksgiving to celebrate their victory in King Philip’s War. The inevitable conflict between the white men and the red had come and the whites were the victors. But nearly one-tenth of the fighting force had been killed, and there was hardly a village or even a home in New England which had not suffered loss.

Nathaniel Bacon
The Leader of the Great Rebellion

It was not only with outsiders—French, Dutch, Spaniards, and Indians—that the English settlers had trouble. One faction in the colonies warred against another. In Virginia the established order was almost overthrown in the seventeenth century by the “Great Rebellion.”

For many years the governor of the colony was Sir William Berkeley, an aristocrat who would not allow the people to have any share in the government of the colony. He feared that if the House of Burgesses was dismissed and new members elected he would lose control of it. So he adjourned it from one session to another, and year after year called together men whom he could trust to obey his will. A very stubborn and overbearing will it was, opposed to all progress and firmly set against granting rights to common people. He approved of high taxes and did not wish the common people to vote; above all, he opposed public education and the liberty of the press. “I thank God there are no free schools nor printing presses,” he said in 1671, “and I hope we shall not have them these hundred years.”

There were now about forty thousand people in Virginia, many of whom had been born and reared there. For the most part, they disapproved of Berkeley’s high-handed course and of his disregard of the rights and privileges of the colonists. But he was the lawful governor and they were loyal, law-abiding people; probably they would have gone on submitting and grumbling had it not been for the Indian attacks and Governor Berkeley’s failure to protect the outlying settlements. Fierce Indian tribes from Pennsylvania had come south; they were now on the borders of the Virginia colony—murdering, burning, and pillaging, making life and property unsafe. In the spring of 1676 the House of Burgesses voted to send five hundred men to protect the frontiers, but instead of ordering them to march Berkeley disbanded the little army.

There was at this time in Jamestown an Englishman as brave and resolute as Berkeley himself and as devoted to the rights of the people as Berkeley was to those of the king. This was Nathaniel Bacon. He had been in Virginia only a few months, but he was so popular and so talented that soon after his arrival he was chosen a member of the governor’s council.

A few weeks after the governor disbanded the army which should have marched to protect the frontier settlements, Bacon received news that the Indians had attacked his plantation on the James and had killed the overseer and a servant. Immediately he collected a little band of his friends and neighbors and servants, and marched against the Indians. He sent to ask Berkeley for a commission; this was refused and Bacon marched on without it. He defeated the Indians and returned home in triumph.

Governor Berkeley was angry because Bacon had assumed authority without a commission and would have liked to punish him as a traitor. But the sympathies of the people were with the young Englishman; the governor had to give up and in the end had to promise Bacon a commission to fight against the Indians. He delayed drawing up the paper, however, until Bacon at the head of several hundred planters marched to Jamestown and required it by force.

At the head of these troops, Bacon marched from Jamestown into the Indian country. The governor, meanwhile, declared Bacon a traitor, raised forces, and prepared to fight. Bacon and his men pledged themselves to stand together in defence of the rights of the people. This was in August, 1676, a hundred years before the American Revolution, which, like the Great Rebellion, was undertaken to uphold the people’s rights.

When Bacon returned from war with the Indians he found war awaiting him at home. The people of the colony were divided in their interests and sympathies. Some sided with Bacon for people’s rights, some sided with Berkeley because that was the cause of the king and lawful authority. There was a stubborn fight in which Bacon was victor and became master of Jamestown. Fearing that they could not hold it and unwilling for it to fall into Berkeley’s hands, the rebels burned the town, the capitol of Virginia, the first seat of English power on this continent. It is said that Bacon and other gentlemen who had houses there fired them with their own hands.

Bacon showed no disposition to take power into his own hands, only wishing to put down the tyranny of Berkeley. After a brief course of victory, he died of fever, October, 1676. His followers buried him in the forest and the place of his grave remains unknown to this day.

A few months later, troops from England came as reinforcements to Berkeley. He made himself again master of the colony and took swift and bloody revenge oil his enemies. More than twenty persons were hanged for their share in the rebellion.

“As I live,” said Charles II., angrily, when the news reached him, “the old fool has put to death more people in that naked country than I did for the murder of my father.”

Benjamin Franklin
A Great Typical American

The men about whom we have been reading were all natives of Europe—Englishmen, Italians, Frenchmen, Dutchmen,—adventurers seeking wealth or power, settlers intent on gaining national or personal power, religious or civil liberty. It is not until the eighteenth century that we come across our first, our great typical American. This is Benjamin Franklin, keen and quick of wit, shrewd and energetic, a man of business and a scholar, a politician and a scientist.

Benjamin Franklin was the son of an English tradesman of plain respectable family, who came to New England in order to enjoy the free exercise of his religion. He made his home in Boston. There Benjamin was born in 1706 and there his childhood was passed. Many incidents of it are familiar to us all. You remember how when he was a child of seven he gave all his pennies for a whistle. But the money was not wasted, for the incident taught him to consider the real value of things and not to spend too much time, thought, or, money for trifles,—in other words, “Don’t give too much for the whistle.”

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

When a little older he led his companions in taking some building-stones to construct a wharf to stand on while fishing; he tried to justify his conduct to his father, saying that his wharf was a public benefit but his father taught him a great truth: “My son, nothing can ever be truly useful, which is not at the same time truly honest.”

Benjamin learned to read almost as soon as he learned to talk, and he was so fond of books that his father wished to have him educated for the ministry. This plan had to be given up for lack of money. Mr. Franklin was a poor man with seventeen children, and when Benjamin was only ten years old he had to leave school and help his father in the shop. Mr. Franklin made and sold soap and candles, and it was Benjamin’s duty to cut candle-wicks and to pour tallow into molds to make candles. He did not like this work, and when he was twelve years old he was apprenticed to his brother James to learn the trade of a printer. He was so fond of books that it was thought he would like this work. He had read with interest his father’s few books, among which were Bunyan’s wonderful “Pilgrim’s Progress” and “Plutarch’s Lives.” With his brother James, Benjamin had access to more books and more opportunity for reading, but the two brothers did not get on well together. Partly this was James’s fault, for he was harsh and overbearing; partly it was Benjamin’s, for he tells us that he was pert and provoking.

Although Benjamin Franklin’s school days had ended so early, his education was just beginning; he appreciated the value of learning and was spending his leisure in study. When he was an old man he wrote for his son the story of his life. In this autobiography he tells how he trained himself. He read carefully one of the papers of the “Spectator,” a model of good English, and afterwards wrote it down in his own words. Sometimes he changed it into verse and then later turned it back into prose. By comparing his version with the original, he discovered and corrected his faults. This is of interest because Franklin became one of our best writers of good English. His command of clear, simple, strong English won attention for what he had to say.

Young Franklin and his brother got on so badly together that he resolved not to remain at home till the end of his apprenticeship. When he was seventeen, he sold some of his books and left home with a few dollars in his pocket. He went on board a vessel bound to New York. Three days after leaving home, he landed in that city where he hoped to find work. New York was then only a small town, and young Franklin found no demand for his services with “the printer in the place.” Therefore he went on to Philadelphia, which was then a much larger and more important place than New York. Part of the way he walked, part he traveled by boat; one Sunday morning in the autumn of 1723, he reached Philadelphia.

In his account of his life he gives us a vivid picture of himself, a friendless, homeless boy, walking hungry up the streets of the strange city. He met a boy with some bread and asked where he could buy food. Being directed to the baker’s, he asked for “three pennyworth” of bread and received “three great puffy rolls.” Then he says, he “having no room in my pockets, walked off with a roll under each arm and eating the other.” Thus he passed the home of a Mr. Read, and at the door stood his daughter Deborah, who laughed at the “awkward, ridiculous appearance” of the strange lad. This Deborah Reed a few years later became Franklin’s wife. Being satisfied with one roll, the youth gave the other two to a woman and child who had come on the boat with him.

He soon got work with a printer in the town, but gave it up because the governor offered to set him up in business for himself. He went to London, to buy the outfit needed for his trade. On arriving there, he found that the governor had failed to send the promised letters of credit,—had, indeed, no credit himself—and the youth, penniless, in a foreign land, was thrown on his own resources. He sought and secured work as a printer, and remained in London about a year. He then returned to Philadelphia, where he worked awhile as salesman in a shop and afterwards at his trade. Soon after his return, he married Deborah Read, who made him a good and helpful wife, managing his home and aiding him in the shop.

Franklin had the “prospering virtues” of economy, industry, and temperance, and he increased in worldly goods and in the esteem of his townspeople. Despite some serious personal failings, he was a good citizen and in public questions people came more and more to respect his judgment.

In the American colonies in the eighteenth century, there were few newspapers and those had a small circulation. Nearly every printer, however, published an almanac which contained weather forecasts, advice, jokes, and miscellaneous information. These almanacs had a large sale and in many homes the only books to be found were an almanac and a Bible. In 1733 Franklin published an almanac which he announced was prepared by one Richard Saunders, called for short “Poor Richard,” a character which Franklin created and represented as overflowing with quaint humor and wise and witty sayings. “Poor Richard’s Almanac” became the most popular of all publications of the kind. Franklin kept up the yearly issue till 1758, when he turned it over to his partner.

Franklin was a man who was never so busy about many things that he did not have time for another. You have been told how he acquired a good English style; to this was added the charm that he always had something to say that was worth hearing. He was fond of different branches of science and was gifted with inventive talent. He studied the laws which govern the movement of hot air, and invented what is called an “open fireplace stove;” under the name of “the Franklin stove” or “Pennsylvania fireplace,” a modified form of it is still in use.

When he was about forty years old, Franklin became interested in the subject of electricity and became convinced that lightning is a manifestation of electricity. He proved this by a famous experiment, drawing the current down the string of a kite in a storm. He invented the lightning rod—for he was always trying to apply the principles of science so as to make them useful. Among his other inventions, was a musical instrument called the “Armonica,” a kind of musical glasses.

Franklin was a progressive and public-spirited citizen. He organized an orderly night-watch for Philadelphia, established the first volunteer fire company, the first hospital, and the first subscription and circulating library, in America. He interested people in the subject of education and established an academy which became the College of Philadelphia, and was the real origin of the University of Pennsylvania. He originated also the American Philosophical Society “to propagate useful knowledge.”

For years he served as postmaster, first of Philadelphia, and afterwards as deputy postmaster-general of the colonies; he introduced many reforms in the postal service and improved the methods of carrying mail to and from the seventy post offices then in the country.

Franklin was now nearly fifty years of age and he was just to begin the career which made him honored and renowned. This was his work as a patriot at home and abroad.

When the French and Indian War broke out, he was commissioned to procure wagons for Braddock’s army. In two weeks by the exercise of private means and wonderful energy, he procured one hundred and fifty wagons and two hundred and fifty pack-horses. After Braddock’s defeat, Franklin, with a band of men whom he had persuaded to enlist, went to protect the settlers on the frontier against the Indians.

It was not as a soldier, however, that he was to serve his country best. Oppressive and burdensome laws were passed for the government of the colonies, and it was resolved to send someone to England to protest against them. Benjamin Franklin was sent to represent first Pennsylvania, later Georgia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. He spent several years in England and succeeded in getting repealed the laws to which the colonies objected. Then he returned home. But soon the English government passed laws more oppressive than ever. One of these was the Stamp Act. Franklin ably and eloquently presented the cause of the colonists, stating that they were willing to bear their fair share of expenses, but that on principle they were opposed to taxation without representation. The king and his ministers were not disposed to grant the reasonable demands of the colonists. Franklin was insulted and abused. In 1775 he returned to a home made desolate during his absence by the death of his wife.

The battle of Lexington had already been fought, and the greatest and wisest of the Americans realized that there was nothing left but to fight for the rights they had failed to gain by respectful petition.

In 1776 there met at Philadelphia the second Continental Congress, composed of delegates from the colonies. It was resolved to form a colonial government and Benjamin Franklin was one of a committee appointed to draw up a declaration of independence. This declaration was drafted by Thomas Jefferson and was adopted so nearly in his words that he is regarded as its author. On the fourth of July, 1776, this declaration was adopted by Congress, and henceforth the colonies were fighting not only for redress of wrongs but for freedom.

The next year Dr. Franklin, then over seventy years of age, was sent to France as one of the commissioners from the United States. It was very important for the struggling colony to gain aid and recognition from France. No more popular or more influential ambassador could have been selected than Franklin; he gained terms more favorable than any other American could have secured.

The three American commissioners did not always agree. Franklin was accused of mismanagement of affairs, or at least of failing to exercise proper oversight. He talked little in his own defence. “A spot of dirt thrown upon my character I suffered while fresh to remain;” he once said shrewdly. “I did not choose to spread by endeavoring to remove them, but relied on the vulgar adage that they would all rub off when dry.”

At first the French were not willing openly to help the rebelling English colonies, but they gave secret aid. The patriots, however, seemed to be losing instead of gaining ground, and the outlook was gloomy at home and abroad. The commissioners in France were distressed by a report that the English general Howe had taken Philadelphia.

“Well, doctor,” said an Englishman to Franklin, “Howe has taken Philadelphia.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Franklin, “Philadelphia has taken Howe.”

But though he endeavored to put a brave face on the matter, his heart was full of apprehension. A messenger came from the colonies and the commissioners rushed out to meet him, asking if Philadelphia were really taken.

“Yes,” answered the messenger.

Franklin clasped his hands and turned to stumble back into the house.

“But, sir, I have greater news than that,” continued the messenger. “General Burgoyne and his whole army are prisoners of war.”

The French government hesitated no longer; in a few weeks it openly recognized the United States, and made a treaty with them.

In 1785 Franklin returned home. He was now nearly eighty, but his public life was not at an end. He was elected President of Pennsylvania and the next year he was sent as a delegate to the Convention which met to form a Constitution for the United States. In April, 1790, he died and was buried in his adopted home in Philadelphia. He had years before written an epitaph for himself.

“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.
Yet the work itself shall not be lost,
For it will, (as he believed) appear once more
In a new
And more beautiful Edition
Corrected and Amended
By
The Author.”