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A Short Biography of Benjamin Franklin. 



Benjamin Franklin began his career, at Boston, as the 

 youngest son in a family of seventeen children. The day 

 of his birth was January 6, 1706. But, long before he 

 died, the Gregorian calendar came into use in the English colo- 

 nies and changed the date of his birth to January 17. As the 

 boy grew up his parents attempted to determine his career. 

 His mother was anxious to see him a minister. The boy was 

 resolved to go to sea. The father tried hard to make him a trades- 

 man, took him round among the carpenters and bricklayers, the 

 joiners and the tanners to see which trade he liked the best 

 and ended by binding him over to an elder brother to learn the 

 trade of a printer. The apprenticeship did not long endure. 

 The two made up an ill-mated pair. From disagreements they 

 passed to insults. Insults led to quarrels. Quarrels to blows, 

 and with blows they parted. The one to drag out an humble 

 existence. The other to become the most illustrious American 

 of his day. 



Unable to find any work in Boston, Benjamin took packet 

 for New York. Faring no better there, he crossed the bay to 

 Perth Amboy, made the journey from Amboy to Burlington 

 on foot, and, early one Sunday morning in October, 1723, 

 reached this city. Here he found work and, in time, fell in 

 with William Keith who governed Pennsylvania for the 

 children of Penn. 



Keith sent him to Boston to urge his father to buy him a 

 press and some type. The father refused, and Keith sent him 

 on a yet more foolish errand to London. When he set sail he 

 believed he was to have letters of introduction and letters of 

 credit, that he was to buy types, paper and a press and come 

 back to America a master printer. When he reached London 

 he found Keith a knave and himself a dupe. 



