Franklin, Tennessee

“ But Davidson county took no part in these proceedings. The State organized by the seceding counties in August 1784 was called the State of Franklin; its constituent counties returned to their allegiance to North Carolina on 1st March 1788. A second Act of Cession was passed in 1790, by which the defunct State of Franklin became part of the territory of the United States south of the Ohio, including what now constitutes Kentucky and Tennessee. ”

“ Last, in the extreme north angle of the pediment, in the evening, is seen the gentle Selene, the goddess of the moon, the goddess of the evening, guiding her tired steeds, so different from those seen coming out of the sea in the morning, down into the cool, quiet waters of the deep, typifying not alone the close of the day but the close of the reign of Athena and the end of time.
The gods of the Greeks are no more. ”

“ On his return from Boston, Franklin found all his affairs in Philadelphia in a very prosperous condition. His business was constantly increasing, his income was growing large, and he was beginning to be very widely known and highly esteemed, throughout the community. He began to be occasionally called upon to take some part in general questions relating to the welfare of the community at large. He was appointed postmaster for Philadelphia. Soon after this he was made clerk of the General Assembly, the colonial legislature of Pennsylvania. ”

“ Such were the perils of a passage from New York to Philadelphia in the year 1723.
Franklin, in the enjoyment of magnificent health, slept quietly that night in an humble inn, and awoke in the morning with all his accustomed vigor. There were still fifty miles of land travel before him, ere he could cross the forest covered plains of New Jersey to Burlington, on the banks of the Delaware, which were seventeen miles above Philadelphia. There was neither railroad, stage-coach nor cart to convey him through the wilderness. ”

“ The dry-goods store, of which he was the owner, had been sold, and Franklin's occupation as a salesman, or clerk, was gone. But the young man had shown himself to be a person of great industry and ability. He had the confidence of everybody that knew him.
A friend of his, who had money, offered to take him as a partner in the newspaper business. And so he again became a printer, and the editor of a paper called the Pennsylvania Gazette.
It was not long until Franklin was recognized as one of the leading men in Philadelphia. His name was known, not only in Pennsylvania, but in all the colonies. ”

“ There are few persons on record to whose individual genius and exertions a community has owed so much as to Dr. Franklin. If William Penn was the political founder of the province, Franklin may perhaps be denominated the architect of its literature, the gifted author of many of its best institutions, and the father of some of the finest features of our character. It is seldom, however, that Providence has vouchsafed such a length of years to such an intellect, and still more seldom that such events occur as those which developed the powers and capacities of Franklin’s mind. ”

“ On his arrival in Philadelphia in 1723, Benjamin Franklin began to make himself a commonwealth builder, and for more than thirty years he was one of the motive forces in that colony. From the first he found himself more at home in Philadelphia than in Boston. A man never overdisposed to self-denial, he enjoyed the comfort, the good dinners, the pleasant associations, the building up of social forces. Still, at that time Franklin had a much greater interest in Benjamin Franklin than in the community around him. ”

“ Franklin was a good citizen: he took part in the founding of the first public library in Philadelphia, the formation of the first fire engine company, and the organization of the first militia, and he persuaded the authorities to light and pave streets and to establish a night watch. He is regarded as the founder of the University of Pennsylvania. ”

“ The wise and virtuous people of Pennsylvania, chiefly quakers, who estimate a man, not by the fineness of his coat, but the usefulness of his life, were not to overlook such a man as Franklin. His astonishing industry, and his many valuable inventions, had long made him the favourite theme of their talk. But it was not for approbation so general and hearty, to be satisfied with mere talk.
What shall be done for the man whom the people delighteth to honour? was the question in every circle. God, they said, has lighted up this candle for our use, it must not be hid under a bushel. ”

“ Franklin helped the Colonies to declare their independence and secured the treaty of alliance with France. At 79 he was elected governor of Pennsylvania. At 82 he helped write the Constitution of the United States. He also devised the American postal system. He died at the age of 84, and Philadelphia is prouder of his tombstone than she is of the Liberty Bell.
Through all his long and busy life Franklin never had time to dress up and adopt the social usages of his day. But this did not prevent him from dazzling the exquisite court of France at its most brilliant and useless period. ”

“ Franklin was in England from December, 1764, until March of 1775, and during these ten years was busily engaged in supporting the colonies in their unequal struggle against the British Parliament. He was the accredited representative of Pennsylvania, Georgia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, and before the government and the people of England stood as the champion of the whole province. Every one knows the nature of the acts which finally created a new empire in the West,—the Stamp Act, the duty on tea, the Boston Port bill. ”

“ When he reached the settlements, he was met with requests from the Governors of Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania that he would station his troops on the frontier of those states so as to protect them from the fury of the savages, but, so far from stopping to protect anybody else, not one jot of speed did he abate until, to use Franklin's words, "he arriv'd at Philadelphia, where the inhabitants could protect him." "This whole transaction," declares the Autobiography, "gave us Americans the first suspicion that our exalted ideas of the prowess of British regulars had not been well founded." ”

“ There are croakers in every country, always boding its ruin. Such a one then lived in Philadelphia; a person of note, an elderly man, with a wise look and a very grave manner of speaking; his name was Samuel Mickle. This gentleman, a stranger to me, stopt one day at my door, and asked me if I was the young man who had lately opened a new printing-house. Being answered in the affirmative, he said he was sorry for me, because it was an expensive undertaking, and the expense would be lost; for Philadelphia was a sinking place, the people already half-bankrupts, or near being so ”

“ I had, on the whole, abundant reason to be satisfied with my being established in Pennsylvania. There were, however, two things that I regretted, there being no provision for defense, nor for a compleat education of youth; no militia, nor any college. I therefore, in 1743, drew up a proposal for establishing an academy; and at that time, thinking the Reverend Mr. Peters, who was out of employ, a fit person to superintend such an institution, I communicated the project to him; but he, having more profitable views in the service of the proprietaries, which succeeded, declin'd the undertaking ”

“ Franklin held his clerkship nearly fifteen years. During this period he was also postmaster of Philadelphia, and these two offices, with the benevolent enterprises of the library, the hospital, the Philosophical Society, and the academy and college, made him very much of a public man in the best sense of the word long before he was engaged in regular politics.
In the year 1747 he performed an important public service by organizing the militia. War had been declared by England against both France and Spain, and the colonies were called upon to help the mother country. ”

“ In the midst of the provincial and barren waste of our intellectual existence in the eighteenth century there stands out in sharp relief the luminous genius of Franklin. It is true that Franklin was cosmopolitan in thought, that his name and fame and achievements in science and literature belonged to mankind; but he was all this because he was genuinely and intensely American. His audacity, his fertility, his adaptability, are all characteristic of America, and not of an English colony. ”

“ In this Autobiography Franklin tells of his own life to the year 1757, when he went to England to support the petition of the legislature against Penn's sons. The grievance of the colonists was a very considerable one, for the proprietaries claimed that taxes should not be levied upon a tract greater than the whole State of Pennsylvania.
Franklin was received in England with applause. His experiments in electricity and his inventions had made him known, and the sayings of "Poor Richard" were already in the mouths of the [Pg 7] people. ”

“ It was in the fall of the year 1723, that Franklin came thus to Philadelphia. He remained there during the winter, but in the spring a very singular train of circumstances occurred, which resulted in leading him back to Boston. During the winter he worked industriously at his trade, and spent his leisure time in reading and study. He laid up the money that he earned, instead of squandering it, as young men in his situation often do, in transient indulgences. He formed many useful acquaintances among the industrious and steady young men in the town. ”

“ The Bostonians, accustomed to the monotonous dullness of the News-letter, received, some with delight, more with horror, all with amazement, this weekly budget of impudence and fun. A knot of liberals gathered around James Franklin, physicians most of them, able, audacious men, who kept him well supplied with squibs, essays, and every variety of sense and nonsense known in that age. The Courant was, indeed, to borrow the slang of the present day, a 'sensational paper.' Such a tempest did it stir up in Boston that the noise thereof was heard in the remote colony of Pennsylvania. ”

“ The Quakers and the German sects which made up the majority of the people of that province in colonial [Pg 168] times had more advanced ideas of liberty and free thought than any of the other religious bodies in America, and in consequence science flourished in Pennsylvania long before it gained entrance into the other colonies. The first American medical college, the first hospital, and the first separate dispensary were established there. Several citizens of Philadelphia who were contemporaries of Franklin achieved sufficient reputation in science to make their names well known in Europe. ”

“ I had hitherto kept the proposition of my setting up a secret in Philadelphia, and I still kept it. Had it been known that I depended on the governor, probably some friend that knew him better would have advised me not to rely on him, as I afterward heard it as his known character to be liberal of promises which he never meant to keep. Yet, unsolicited as he was by me, how could I think his generous offers insincere? I believed him one of the best men in the world. [54]
I presented him an inventory of a little printing house, amounting, by my computation, to about one hundred pounds sterling. ”

“ At the time I establish'd myself in Pennsylvania, there was not a good bookseller's shop in any of the colonies to the southward of Boston. In New York and Philad'a the printers were indeed stationers; they sold only paper, etc., almanacs, ballads, and a few common school-books. Those who lov'd reading were obliged to send for their books from England; the members of the Junto had each a few. We had left the alehouse, where we first met, and hired a room to hold our club in. ”

“ But having another profession, and conceiving myself a pretty good workman, I offered my services to a printer of the place, old Mr W. Bradford, who had been the first printer in Pennsylvania, but had removed thence, in consequence of a quarrel with the governor, General Keith. He could give me no employment, having little to do, and hands enough already. But he said, "My son, at Philadelphia, has lately lost his principal hand, Aquilla Rose, by death; if you go thither, I believe he may employ you." Philadelphia was one hundred miles farther ”

“ In 1772, Franklin visited Ireland. He was treated there with great honor; but the poverty of the Irish peasantry overwhelmed his benevolent heart with astonishment and dismay. He writes,
“I thought often of the happiness of New England, where every man is a free-holder, has a vote in public affairs, lives in a tidy, warm house, has plenty of good food and fuel, with whole clothes from head to foot, the manufacture perhaps of his own family. Long may they continue in this situation.”
In the year 1773, Franklin spent several weeks in the beautiful mansion of his friend, Lord Despencer. ”

“ Hence, while for lack of one Franklin, one intelligent and public spirited philanthropist, many of our promising young towns are suddenly turned to ashes, and their hapless families, driven out naked into the weather; the favoured citizens of Philadelphia, guarded by forty engines, and hundreds of well trained young firemen, seldom suffer any thing beyond a momentary pang from this most alarming element! ”

“ Upon reaching Philadelphia, Franklin presented the letter of his father to Sir William Keith. The Governor, upon reading the letter, said,
“Your father is too prudent. There is a great difference in persons. Discretion does not always accompany years; nor is youth always without it. But since he will not set you up, I will do it myself. Give me an inventory of the things necessary to be had from England, and I will send for them. You shall repay me when you are able. I am resolved to have a good printer here and I am sure you must succeed.” ”