Benjamin Franklin

As Benjamin basked in this heady tribute, the governor and Colonel French launched into ways and means of setting him up in the printing business. All that was needed was capita...

The defeat of Braddock taught the colonists that the British military was not as invincible as they had been led to believe. Many more Indians joined the French, deciding they w...

Franklin’s own celebration was to go shopping. With Mrs. Stevenson to guide him, he bought more presents for his wife and Sally—fourteen yards of Pompadour satin for a new gown,...

Poor Richard had something to say on practically every subject under the sun. He was in turn witty, wise, and, in keeping with the time he lived in, somewhat bawdy. No matter th...

But neither the “Rules” nor the “Edict” persuaded Parliament and the ministry to change their ways. Colonial resentment focused on the tax on tea, which small as it was, remaine...

Early in 1747, he gave the names of positive and negative (or plus and minus) to the two types of electricity, to replace the unwieldy terms, resinous and vitreous. Positive and...

That was the rumor which his “enemy,” William Smith, had been spreading. It had reached Franklin’s ears but he had not worried about it nor did he have reason to. As his ship sa...

Exultantly, Franklin prepared his dispatch to Congress, announcing “one of the most obstinate and bloody conflicts that has happened in this war.” With even greater pleasure he...

For fear of British retaliation, Vergennes dared not openly sponsor him. Privately he was doing all in his power to convince Louis XVI that the American rebellion, even though a...

On his return, he stopped in Warwick, Rhode Island, where his sister Jane Mecom, an old woman now, had taken refuge from British-occupied Boston with their old friends, the Gree...

1. A Boyhood in Boston 9 2. A Young Man on His Own 18 3. The Birth of Poor Richard 28 4. The Civic-Minded Citizen 38 5. The Thunder Giant 49 6. A Brief Military Career 61 7. The...

He and his grandsons spent four days at Southampton, England. William Franklin came down from London, where he was now living, to see them, but the meeting with his father was b...

F _Fearnot_, privateer, 159 First Continental Congress, 119, 120 Fisher, Daniel, 68 Forbes, Brigadier General, 71 Fort Duquesne, 65, 66, 70-71 Fothergill, Dr. John, 58, 77, 89 F...