The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, by
Benjamin Franklin

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Title: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Author: Benjamin Franklin

Release Date: May 22, 2008 [EBook #148]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUTOBIOGRAPH OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN ***

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES

EDITED BY CHARLES W ELIOT LLD

P F COLLIER & SON COMPANY, NEW YORK (1909)

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN was born in Milk Street, Boston, on January 6, 1706.
His father, Josiah Franklin, was a tallow chandler who married twice,
and of his seventeen children Benjamin was the youngest son. His
schooling ended at ten, and at twelve he was bound apprentice to his
brother James, a printer, who published the "New England Courant." To
this journal he became a contributor, and later was for a time its
nominal editor. But the brothers quarreled, and Benjamin ran away,
going first to New York, and thence to Philadelphia, where he arrived
in October, 1723. He soon obtained work as a printer, but after a few
months he was induced by Governor Keith to go to London, where, finding
Keith's promises empty, he again worked as a compositor till he was
brought back to Philadelphia by a merchant named Denman, who gave him
a position in his business. On Denman's death he returned to his former
trade, and shortly set up a printing house of his own from which he
published "The Pennsylvania Gazette," to which he contributed many
essays, and which he made a medium for agitating a variety of local
reforms. In 1732 he began to issue his famous "Poor Richard's Almanac"
for the enrichment of which he borrowed or composed those pithy
utterances of worldly wisdom which are the basis of a large part of his
popular reputation. In 1758, the year in which he ceases writing for
the Almanac, he printed in it "Father Abraham's Sermon," now regarded
as the most famous piece of literature produced in Colonial America.

Meantime Franklin was concerning himself more and more with public
affairs. He set forth a scheme for an Academy, w