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Dr Benjamin Franklin

Male 1706 - 1790  (84 years)    Has 16 ancestors and 98 descendants in this family tree.

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  • Name Benjamin Franklin 
    Prefix Dr 
    Birth 17 Jan 1706  Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, USA Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Male 
    Prominent People USA Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Death 17 Apr 1790  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Burial Christ Church Burial Ground. Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Siblings 9 Siblings 
    Person ID I130355  Geneagraphie
    Links To This person is also Benjamin Franklin at Wikipedia 
    Last Modified 24 Nov 2001 

    Father Josiah Franklin,   b. 23 Dec 1652, Ecton, England Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 16 Jan 1745, Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, USA Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 92 years) 
    Mother Abiah Folger,   b. 15 Aug 1667, Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, USA Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 18 May 1752, Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, USA Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 84 years) 
    Marriage 25 Nov 1689  Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, USA Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Family ID F86812  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Children 
    +1. William Temple Franklin,   b. 1728, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 17 Nov 1813, London, Middlesex, England Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 85 years)
    Family ID F127256  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 18 Oct 2001 

    Family 2 Deborah Read,   b. 1708, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 19 Dec 1774, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 66 years) 
    Marriage 1 Sep 1730  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Children 
     1. Francis Folger Franklin,   b. 1732   d. Yes, date unknown
    +2. Sarah Franklin,   b. 22 Sep 1743, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 5 Oct 1808, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 65 years)
    Family ID F86957  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 12 Mar 2001 

  • Event Map Click to hide
    Link to Google MapsBirth - 17 Jan 1706 - Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, USA Link to Google Earth
    Link to Google MapsProminent People - French Revolution Declaration of Independence Founding Father USA Dick - - USA Link to Google Earth
    Link to Google MapsMarriage - 1 Sep 1730 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Link to Google Earth
    Link to Google MapsDeath - 17 Apr 1790 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Link to Google Earth
     = Link to Google Earth 
    Pin Legend  : Address       : Location       : City/Town       : County/Shire       : State/Province       : Country       : Not Set

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  • Notes 
    • one of the leading founding fathers of the United States of America. He signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, and served as the new nation's ablest diplomat.
      Franklin's formal schooling ended early but his education never did. He believed that "the doors to wisdom are never shut," and read every book he could get his hands on. Franklin taught himself simple algebra and geometry, navigation, logic, history, science, English grammar and five other languages.
      Franklin had a simple formula for success. He believed that successful people worked just a little harder than other people. Benjamin Franklin certainly did. He built a successful printing and publishing business in Philadelphia; he conducted scientific studies of electricity and made several important discoveries; he was an accomplished diplomat and statesman; he helped establish Pennsylvania's first university and America's first city hospital. He also organized the country's first subscription library.
      Franklin was also unequaled in America as an inventor until Thomas Edison. He invented the Franklin stove, bifocal eyeglasses and the lightning rod. He refused to profit from his inventions, preferring to have them used freely for the comfort and convenience of everyone. Thomas Jefferson called Benjamin Franklin "the greatest man and ornament of the age and country in which he lived."

      After serving an apprenticeship to his father between the ages of 10 and 12, he went to work for his half-brother James, a printer. In 1721 the latter founded the New England Courant, the fourth newspaper in the colonies. Benjamin secretly contributed 14 essays to it, his first published writings.
      In 1723, because of dissension with his half-brother, Franklin moved to Philadelphia, where he obtained employment as a printer. He spent only a year there and then sailed to London for 2 more years. Back in Philadelphia, he rose rapidly in the printing industry. He published The Pennsylvania Gazette (1730-48), which had been founded by another man in 1728, but his most successful literary venture was the annual Poor Richard 's Almanac (1733-58). It won a popularity in the colonies second only to the Bible, and its fame eventually spread to Europe.
      Meantime, in 1730 Franklin had taken a common-law wife, Deborah Read, who was to bear him a son and daughter, and he also apparently had children with another nameless woman out of wedlock. By 1748 he had achieved financial independence and gained recognition for his philanthropy and the stimulus he provided to such civic causes as libraries, educational institutions, and hospitals. Energetic and tireless, he also found time to pursue his interest in science, as well as to enter politics.
      Franklin served as clerk (1736-51) and member (1751-64) of the colonial legislature and as deputy postmaster of Philadelphia (1737-53) and deputy postmaster general of the colonies (1753-74). In addition, he represented Pennsylvania at the Albany Congress (1754), called to unite the colonies during the French and Indian War. The congress adopted his "Plan of Union," but the colonial assemblies rejected it because it encroached on their powers.
      During the years 1757-62 and 1764-75, Franklin resided in England, originally in the capacity of agent for Pennsylvania and later for Georgia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. During the latter period, which coincided with the growth of colonial unrest, he underwent a political metamorphosis. Until then a contented Englishman in outlook, primarily concerned with Pennsylvania provincial politics, he distrusted popular movements and saw little purpose to be served in carrying principle to extremes. Until the issue of parliamentary taxation undermined the old alliances, he led the Quaker party attack on the Anglican proprietary party and its Presbyterian frontier allies. His purpose throughout the years at London in fact had been displacement of the Penn family administration by royal authority-the conversion of the province from a proprietary to a royal colony.
      It was during the Stamp Act crisis that Franklin evolved from leader of a shattered provincial party's faction to celebrated spokesman at London for American rights. Although as agent for Pennsylvania he opposed by every conceivable means the enactment of the bill in 1765, he did not at first realize the depth of colonial hostility. He regarded passage as unavoidable and preferred to submit to it while actually working for its repeal.
      Franklin's nomination of a friend and political ally as stamp distributor for Pennsylvania, coupled with his apparent acceptance of the legislation, armed his proprietary opponents with explosive issues. Their energetic exploitation of them endangered his reputation at home until reliable information was published demonstrating his unabated opposition to the act. For a time, mob resentment threatened his family and new home in Philadelphia until his tradesmen supporters rallied. Subsequently, Franklin's defense of the American position in the House of Commons during the debates over the Stamp Act's repeal restored his prestige at home.
      Franklin returned to Philadelphia in May 1775 and immediately became a distinguished member of the Continental Congress. Thirteen months later, he served on the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence. He subsequently contributed to the government in other important ways, including service as postmaster general, and took over the duties of president of the Pennsylvania constitutional convention.
      But, within less than a year and a half after his return, the aged statesman set sail once again for Europe, beginning a career as diplomat that would occupy him for most of the rest of his life. In the years 1776-79, as one of three commissioners, he directed the negotiations that led to treaties of commerce and alliance with France, where the people adulated him, but he and the other commissioners squabbled constantly. While he was sole commissioner to France (1779-85), he and John Jay and John Adams negotiated the Treaty of Paris (1783), which ended the War for Independence.
      Back in the United States, in 1785 Franklin became president of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania. At the Constitutional Convention, though he did not approve of many aspects of the finished document and was hampered by his age and ill-health, he missed few if any sessions, lent his prestige, soothed passions, and compromised disputes.
      In his twilight years, working on his Autobiography, Franklin could look back on a fruitful life as the toast of two continents. Energetic nearly to the last, in 1787 he was elected as first president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery-a cause to which he had committed himself as early as the 1730s. His final public act was signing a memorial to Congress recommending dissolution of the slavery system. S



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