Page 53 - JM Book 9/2020

Tuesday, June 25, 1776
Sitting in his favorite chair with his foot resting on an upholstered stool, Benjamin Franklin read the declaration of independence that Jefferson had brought to him. His bifocals rested halfway down his
nose. He paused from time-to-time to cool himself with a wicker fan. His facial expressions alternated between looks of satisfaction and confusion.
Jefferson was unable to interpret what Franklin might be thinking. He patiently waited by reading the 1758 edition of Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack, which he found in a stack of books on a nearby table. Franklin published the Almanack annually for twenty-five years. It contained a collection of original and borrowed proverbs, such as “There are no gains without pains,” charts of the moon’s phases and agricultural predictions.
The seventy-year-old Franklin was the oldest member of Congress. He had already earned a reputation as a businessman, writer, publisher, inventor, scientist, diplomat and legislator.
Born to a working class family in Boston on January 17, 1706, he was the fifteenth child in a family of seventeen children. He attended school for a few years before becoming an apprentice at his brother’s print shop. At the age of seventeen, he ran away to Philadelphia where he worked for a printer. Eventually, he established his own printing business and become publisher of the Pennsylvania Gazette. In 1733, he started to write and publish Poor Richard’s Almanack under the pseudonym of Richard Saunders. Before becoming a member of the Second Continental Congress in 1775, Franklin had spent sixteen years in England, originally as the representative for Pennsylvania, then for Georgia, New Jersey and Massachusetts.
“Thomas,” Franklin said as he removed his bifocals, “this is an impressive
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