General Notes

Also Known As:<_AKA> Ben /Franklin/
REFN: 2848
NB Benjamin FRANKLIN's grandfather, Peter FOLGER, is a direct ancestor ofYvette COLE.

-Encyclopedia Britanica
Occupation: printer, publisher, author, inventor, scientist and diplomat.
He helped frame the US Declaration of Independance and the USConstitution.
He invented the Franklin stove, bifocal spectacles and the lightning rod.
He was the 10th son of 17 children of a soap and candlemaker.
-end -Encyclopedia Britanica-

-Encarta
Franklin, Benjamin (1706-1790), American printer, author, diplomat,philosopher, and scientist, whose many contributions to the cause of theAmerican Revolution (1775-1783), and the newly formed federal governmentthat followed, rank him among the country's greatest statesmen.
Franklin was born on January 17, 1706, in Boston. His father, JosiahFranklin, a tallow chandler by trade, had 17 children; Benjamin was the15th child and the 10th son. His mother, Abiah Folger, was his father'ssecond wife.
In 1731 he founded what was probably the first public library in America,chartered in 1742 as the Philadelphia Library. He first published PoorRichard's Almanack in 1732, under the pen name Richard Saunders.
In 1736 Franklin became clerk of the Pennsylvania General Assembly andthe next year was appointed deputy postmaster of Philadelphia. About thistime, he organized the first fire company in that city and introducedmethods for the improvement of street paving and lighting. Alwaysinterested in scientific studies, he devised means to correct theexcessive smoking of chimneys and invented, around 1744, the Franklinstove, which furnished greater heat with a reduced consumption of fuel.He discovered electricity when he performed his celebrated experimentwith the kite in 1752. He also invented the lightning rod.

Source - "Franklin, Benjamin," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia.(c) 1993-1997 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
-end-Encarta
Franklin, Benjamin was an American printer, author, diplomat, philosopher, and scientist, whose many contributions to the cause of the American Revolution, and the newly formed federal government that followed, rank him among the country's greatest statesmen.

Franklin was born on January 17, 1706, in Boston. His father, Josiah Franklin, a tallow chandler by trade, had 17 children; Benjamin was the 15th child and the 10th son. His mother, Abiah Folger, was his father's second wife. The Franklin family was in modest circumstances, like most New Englanders of the time. After his attendance at grammar school from age eight to ten, Benjamin was taken into his father's business. Finding the work uncongenial, however, he entered the employ of a cutler. At age 13 he was apprenticed to his brother James, who had recently returned from England with a new printing press. Benjamin learned the printing trade, devoting his spare time to the advancement of his education. His reading included Pilgrim's Progress by the British preacher John Bunyan, Parallel Lives, the work of the Greek essayist and biographer Plutarch, Essay on Projects by the English journalist and novelist Daniel Defoe, and the Essays to Do Good by Cotton Mather, the American Congregational clergyman. When he acquired a copy of the third volume of the Spectator by the British statesmen and essayists Sir Richard Steele and Joseph Addison, he set himself the goal of mastering its prose style.

In 1721 his brother James Franklin established the New England Courant, and Benjamin, at the age of 15, was busily occupied in delivering the newspaper by day and in composing articles for it at night. These articles, published anonymously, won wide notice and acclaim for their pithy observations on the current scene. Because of its liberal bias, the New England Courant frequently incurred the displeasure of the colonial authorities. In 1722, as a consequence of an article considered particularly offensive, James Franklin was imprisoned for a month and forbid