We have been learning about Benjamin Franklin.
Streets were named after him eventually!
But he was poor for a long time and then he became an apprentice.
I will give you more information later.
Benjamin (also known as Ben) lived on a street called Milk Street.
Here are some of the things Ben would be named after . . .
Streets, Towns, Counties, Colleges, Libraries, Hotels, Banks, Ships, Stoves, Stores, A football field, and a flowering tree.
Ben's father didn't care if he was rich. He didn't give it a thought.
Ben's last name was Franklin.
Mr. Franklin, (Ben's father) was a leather apron man.
(That means, he works with his hands and has a trade.)
Mr. Franklin made soap and candles.
Ben's brother Samuel was already a blacksmith.
The oldest son in the Franklin home was always a blacksmith.
Ben's brother James would be a printer.
Three other brothers would be trained to make soap and candles. The remaining four brothers died young. Two died as babies. Josiah Ben's brother and Ebenezer Ben's brother were drowned.
Josiah ran away and was drowned at sea.
Sixteen month Ebenezer ran away and was drowned in a tub of his father's soap suds.
Ben was the tenth and last of Mr. Franklin's 10 sons.
Ben was very smart.
Mr. Franklin thought Ben should be a preacher.
He would go to Latin school and then college and then climb up into a pulpit and make his father proud.
When he was 7 years old off he went to Latin School.
Some preachers went around with holes in their shoes.
Mr. Franklin decided it would be to much money so he took Ben out of Latin school and put him in a ordinary reading and writing school for to years.
When Benjamin was 10 Mr. Franklin took him out of school altogether.
He was old enough now to run errands for him.
To delver soap to dip candles.
When he was 12 years old, they'd decide what kind of leather apron man he would be.
Then he'd become an apprentice and learn the trade.
And no wonder he had to say that he would become an apprentice and would obey his master until he was 21 years old.
When Ben was 12 years old he told his father that he might go to sea.
His father didn't care for that idea. Look what happened to his brother Josiah.
Ben didn't care for soap and candles.
Besides look hat happened to his brother Ebenezer and the soap suds.
Ben knew his father had a good business.
His candles sold well.
Even the night watchmen carried Mr. Franklin's candles around.
There was however one thing wrong with the business, it smelled.
Mr. Franklin took Ben to different shops.
Mr. Franklin talked Ben into being an apprentice to his brother James.
Now Ben was stuck until he was 21.
James thought Ben was vain and argumentative.
He treated been strictly if not more strictly then the other apprentices.
Ben could not bear to think of all those years gone to waste.
He would read.
He would write.
As a starter he tried writing a poem.
It was a long poem about the capture of Blackbeard the pirate.
He showed it to his father.
His father thought it was a terrible poem.
Later he would write letters to Jame's office signing them Silence Dogood.
Ben read a book about vegetarianism and decided to quit eating meat.
He asked James to give him cash in what he would usually pay or his meals.
James agreed.
Now Ben could not only eat alone he could read while he ate.
Now he could also save some money for books.
Many times a meal was only a biscuit, a handful of raisins, and a glass full of water.
Once Ben read a book about swimming.
He learned some fancy tricks and strokes.
He learned to swim on his belly while holding both hands still, to carry his left leg in his right hand, to show both his hands and feet out of the water.
To swim with his legs tied together,to sit in the water, to cut his toenails in the water, to show 4 parts out of the water at the same time, to swim holding up one leg, to put on boots in the water, and to leap like a goat.
In order to swim faster he tried out an idea of his own. He made wooden paddles for his hands and feet.
He went faster but the paddles were heavy so he didn't get far.
Then he tried lying on his back, holding a kite string so the kite could pull him across the pond.
Ben read a book on how to argue.
The author said that a person should not flatly contradict another person.
Instead he should be polite and ask questions until at last he had brought his opponent around to contradicting himself.
Ben tried this and it did work.
When Ben was 17 Ben ran away.
He boarded a boat and left for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
He was free!
He bought a new suit of clothes, and a watch with a long gold watchchain.
When he had saved enough he went to Boston to see his family.Ben stopped at the printshop to show off.
He walked in and twriled his watchchain and jingled the money in his pockets.
James was so angry it took years for him to recover.
In Philedalpheia Ben married a woman named Debbie.
Ben Ben was 24 years old.
He had his own printshop now.
He made up lots of inventions.
Here are 2.
He inented a rocking chair with a fan over it when he rocked the fan would blow to keep the flies off.
He invented a stepladder stool with a seat that turned up.
He flied a kite in a thunder storm to prove that lightning was electricity.
Ben was called to France.
When Franklin was 79 years old he came back home and Debbie was dead.
His daughter Sarah was so excitedshe fell into a wheelbarrow.
Every afternoon Ben's 9 year old grandaughter Deborah would come and readaloud her speller.
If she did well Ben would give her a spoonful of fruitjelly that he kept beside him.
April 17, 1790, Ben died.
He was 84 years old.
(This is a summary of a book she read, "What's the Big Idea, Ben Franklin"
