The fund has been successfully applied and is or was formerly employed in purchasing medals for distribution in the schools of Boston.
There is a gift to the State of Pennsylvania of 2000 pounds to be employed in making the Schuylkill River navigable.
He concludes with this clause: “I would have my body buried with as little expense or ceremony as may be.”
In the codicil to the will are found these expressions and gifts:
“It has been my opinion, that he who receives an estate from his ancestors is under some kind of obligation to transmit the same to their posterity: this obligation does not lie on me, who never inherited a shilling from any ancestor or relation.”
One thousand pounds was given to Boston and another thousand to Philadelphia, to be held by trustees, which sums he directed should be “let out on interest at 5 per cent per annum to young married artificers under the age of twenty-five years.” These cities accepted the sums, and they have been wisely used.
“I wish to be buried by the side of my wife, if it may be, and that a marble stone be made by Chambers, six feet long, four feet wide, plain, with only a small moulding around the upper edge, with this inscription,
| Benjamin Deborah | -Franklin |
to be placed over us both.”
This request was carried out.