HALL OF FAME MEN. IO3 



schooling he became great as a writer, great as an editor, great 

 as an inventor, great as a scientist, great as a diplomat, great as 

 a statesman, and great as a councillor when the American Republic 

 was struggling into existence. When we examine into his ancestry 

 we find a most remarkable state of affairs. He was born January 

 6, 1706, and was the son of Josiah, who was born December 

 23, 1655. The grandfather, Thomas, was born in 1598, and, from 

 what Franklin tells us in his autobiography, the great-grandfather 

 must have been about seventy when Thomas was born. We thus 

 have Josiah fifty-one when Benjamin was born, Thomas fifty-seven 

 when Josiah was born, and the great-grandfather about seventy 

 when Thomas was born. There are still two more steps to account 

 for, as Franklin tells us that he "was the youngest son of the 

 youngest son for five generations back." Franklin's mother was 

 Abiah Folger, daughter of Peter Folger, born when her father 

 was fifty years of age. Cotton Mather, in his Magnolia Christi 

 Americana, designates Peter Folger as "a godly and learned Eng- 

 lishman." We have here linked together four persons born in 

 class A and its sub-classes, A 2 and A 3 . As a mere matter of prob- 

 abilities, there is only one chance in 500,000 that a person could 

 be born in as high a rank as Benjamin Franklin, and consequently 

 only one chance in 20,000 that such a person should appear in this 

 list of twenty-five famous men. In fact, the chances against such 

 a thing occurring are very much greater, as my examination of 

 the Redfield Genealogy shows that only about one class A person 

 in twenty is born to a class A father. 



JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. 



John James Audubon, America's greatest naturalist, was born 

 May 4, 1780, and was the son of John Audubon, who was born 



