The values of obedience and industry were implanted in all of them. “Seest thou a man diligent in his calling,” Josiah would quote from Solomon, “he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men.” Nothing then seemed more unlikely than that he, Benjamin Franklin, would ever stand before a king.
He was a sturdy, squarely built youngster, with a broad friendly face, light brown hair, and bright mischievous eyes. Among boys of his own age he was the leader—and sometimes led them into scrapes.
Once they were fishing for minnows in the salt marsh. Benjamin suggested they build a wharf so as not to get their feet wet. For the purpose, they appropriated a pile of stones belonging to some workmen who were using them to build a house. The wharf was a success but there were repercussions when the men found their stones missing.
“Nothing is useful which is not honest,” Josiah told his erring son.
As a youth, he learned to handle boats, to swim, to dive, and to perform all manner of water stunts. One day he resolved to try swimming and flying his kite simultaneously. To his delight, he found that if he floated on his back while holding the kite’s string, he was effortlessly drawn across the pond. Another time he carved himself two oval slabs of wood, shaped like a painter’s palette, bored a hole for his thumb, and used them like oars to propel himself along. In this way he could easily outswim his comrades, though his wrists soon tired. He tried similar devices for his feet with less success. For this invention he might be called the first frog man.
He had no enthusiasm for cutting candle wicks and often dreamed of going to sea as an older brother had done. Josiah Franklin, sensing his discontent, told him he could take his pick of other trades. In turn, he took his son to watch the work of joiners, bricklayers, turners, and braziers. Young Benjamin admired the way they handled their tools but did not find these trades to his taste either.
Wisely, his father did not press him. His brother James had returned from England in 1717 with equipment to set up a printing shop at the corner of Queen Street and Dasset Alley. Since Benjamin liked to read, what would he think of being a printer—a trade that deals with pamphlets, books, everything made with words? The idea appealed to Benjamin, though he balked when he learned he would be apprenticed to his brother until he was twenty. His father insisted; the apprenticeship, legal as a slave contract, would assure him against losing a second son to the dangerous sea. When Benjamin finally signed the papers which bound him to his brother’s service, he was twelve years old. Everyone agreed he was exceptionally bright for his age.
James Franklin was one of Boston’s young intellectuals, belonging to what the pious Cotton Mather called the “Hell Fire Club,” made up of clever young men like himself. He had reason to be pleased with how quickly his little brother mastered the techniques of a printer’s trade. As Benjamin’s skill began to surpass his own, his attitude changed to resentment and jealousy. He found excuses to scold Benjamin, and sometimes gave him blows.
The shop handled pamphlets and advertisements and such odd jobs. As a sideline they printed patterns on linen, calico, and silk “in good figures, very lively and durable colours.” In the second year of Benjamin’s apprenticeship, their fortunes improved with a substantial contract to print the Boston Gazette for 40 weeks. The Gazette was one of Boston’s two newspapers, both insufferably dull. When his contract came to an end, James decided to publish his own newspaper. His friends scoffed, saying that America had no need of still another newspaper!
The first issue of James Franklin’s New England Courant appeared August 7, 1721, during a smallpox epidemic—and was devoted to opposing the new “doubtful and dangerous practice” of smallpox inoculation. There is no evidence that young Benjamin took any stand—either for or against—in the controversy.