The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (2 page)

This obscure family of ours was early in the Reformation,
and continued Protestants through the reign of Queen Mary,
when they were sometimes in danger of trouble on account of their
zeal against popery. They had got an English Bible, and to conceal
and secure it, it was fastened open with tapes under and within
the cover of a joint-stool. When my great-great-grandfather read
it to his family, he turned up the joint-stool upon his knees,
turning over the leaves then under the tapes. One of the children
stood at the door to give notice if he saw the apparitor coming,
who was an officer of the spiritual court. In that case the stool
was turned down again upon its feet, when the Bible remained concealed
under it as before. This anecdote I had from my uncle Benjamin.
The family continued all of the Church of England till about the end
of Charles the Second's reign, when some of the ministers that had been
outed for nonconformity holding conventicles in Northamptonshire,
Benjamin and Josiah adhered to them, and so continued all their lives:
the rest of the family remained with the Episcopal Church.

Josiah, my father, married young, and carried his wife with three
children into New England, about 1682. The conventicles having
been forbidden by law, and frequently disturbed, induced some
considerable men of his acquaintance to remove to that country,
and he was prevailed with to accompany them thither, where they expected
to enjoy their mode of religion with freedom. By the same wife he
had four children more born there, and by a second wife ten more,
in all seventeen; of which I remember thirteen sitting at one time
at his table, who all grew up to be men and women, and married;
I was the youngest son, and the youngest child but two, and was born
in Boston, New England. My mother, the second wife, was Abiah Folger,
daughter of Peter Folger, one of the first settlers of New England,
of whom honorable mention is made by Cotton Mather in his church
history of that country, entitled Magnalia Christi Americana,
as 'a godly, learned Englishman," if I remember the words rightly.
I have heard that he wrote sundry small occasional pieces,
but only one of them was printed, which I saw now many years since.
It was written in 1675, in the home-spun verse of that time and people,
and addressed to those then concerned in the government there.
It was in favor of liberty of conscience, and in behalf of the Baptists,
Quakers, and other sectaries that had been under persecution,
ascribing the Indian wars, and other distresses that had befallen
the country, to that persecution, as so many judgments of God
to punish so heinous an offense, and exhorting a repeal of those
uncharitable laws. The whole appeared to me as written with a good
deal of decent plainness and manly freedom. The six concluding lines
I remember, though I have forgotten the two first of the stanza;
but the purport of them was, that his censures proceeded from
good-will, and, therefore, he would be known to be the author.

"Because to be a libeller (says he)
I hate it with my heart;
From Sherburne town, where now I dwell
My name I do put here;
Without offense your real friend,
It is Peter Folgier."

My elder brothers were all put apprentices to different trades.
I was put to the grammar-school at eight years of age, my father
intending to devote me, as the tithe of his sons, to the service
of the Church. My early readiness in learning to read (which must
have been very early, as I do not remember when I could not read),
and the opinion of all his friends, that I should certainly make a
good scholar, encouraged him in this purpose of his. My uncle Benjamin,
too, approved of it, and proposed to give me all his short-hand
volumes of sermons, I suppose as a stock to set up with, if I would
learn his character. I continued, however, at the grammar-school
not quite one year, though in that time I had risen gradually
from the middle of the class of that year to be the head of it,
and farther was removed into the next class above it, in order to go
with that into the third at the end of the year. But my father,
in the meantime, from a view of the expense of a college education,
which having so large a family he could not well afford, and the mean
living many so educated were afterwards able to obtain—reasons that
he gave to his friends in my hearing—altered his first intention,
took me from the grammar-school, and sent me to a school for writing
and arithmetic, kept by a then famous man, Mr. George Brownell,
very successful in his profession generally, and that by mild,
encouraging methods. Under him I acquired fair writing pretty soon,
but I failed in the arithmetic, and made no progress in it.
At ten years old I was taken home to assist my father in his business,
which was that of a tallow-chandler and sope-boiler; a business he
was not bred to, but had assumed on his arrival in New England,
and on finding his dying trade would not maintain his family,
being in little request. Accordingly, I was employed in cutting wick
for the candles, filling the dipping mold and the molds for cast candles,
attending the shop, going of errands, etc.

I disliked the trade, and had a strong inclination for the sea,
but my father declared against it; however, living near the water,
I was much in and about it, learnt early to swim well, and to
manage boats; and when in a boat or canoe with other boys, I was
commonly allowed to govern, especially in any case of difficulty;
and upon other occasions I was generally a leader among the boys,
and sometimes led them into scrapes, of which I will mention
one instance, as it shows an early projecting public spirit, tho'
not then justly conducted.

There was a salt-marsh that bounded part of the mill-pond,
on the edge of which, at high water, we used to stand to fish
for minnows. By much trampling, we had made it a mere quagmire.
My proposal was to build a wharff there fit for us to stand upon,
and I showed my comrades a large heap of stones, which were intended
for a new house near the marsh, and which would very well suit
our purpose. Accordingly, in the evening, when the workmen
were gone, I assembled a number of my play-fellows, and working
with them diligently like so many emmets, sometimes two or three
to a stone, we brought them all away and built our little wharff.
The next morning the workmen were surprised at missing the stones,
which were found in our wharff. Inquiry was made after the removers;
we were discovered and complained of; several of us were corrected
by our fathers; and though I pleaded the usefulness of the work,
mine convinced me that nothing was useful which was not honest.

I think you may like to know something of his person and character.
He had an excellent constitution of body, was of middle stature,
but well set, and very strong; he was ingenious, could draw prettily,
was skilled a little in music, and had a clear pleasing voice,
so that when he played psalm tunes on his violin and sung withal,
as he sometimes did in an evening after the business of the day was over,
it was extremely agreeable to hear. He had a mechanical genius too,
and, on occasion, was very handy in the use of other tradesmen's tools;
but his great excellence lay in a sound understanding and solid
judgment in prudential matters, both in private and publick affairs.
In the latter, indeed, he was never employed, the numerous
family he had to educate and the straitness of his circumstances
keeping him close to his trade; but I remember well his being
frequently visited by leading people, who consulted him for his
opinion in affairs of the town or of the church he belonged to,
and showed a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice:
he was also much consulted by private persons about their affairs
when any difficulty occurred, and frequently chosen an arbitrator
between contending parties.

At his table he liked to have, as often as he could, some sensible
friend or neighbor to converse with, and always took care to start
some ingenious or useful topic for discourse, which might tend
to improve the minds of his children. By this means he turned
our attention to what was good, just, and prudent in the conduct
of life; and little or no notice was ever taken of what related
to the victuals on the table, whether it was well or ill dressed,
in or out of season, of good or bad flavor, preferable or inferior
to this or that other thing of the kind, so that I was bro't up
in such a perfect inattention to those matters as to be quite
indifferent what kind of food was set before me, and so unobservant
of it, that to this day if I am asked I can scarce tell a few hours
after dinner what I dined upon. This has been a convenience to me
in travelling, where my companions have been sometimes very unhappy
for want of a suitable gratification of their more delicate,
because better instructed, tastes and appetites.

My mother had likewise an excellent constitution: she suckled
all her ten children. I never knew either my father or mother
to have any sickness but that of which they dy'd, he at 89,
and she at 85 years of age. They lie buried together at Boston,
where I some years since placed a marble over their grave,
with this inscription:

JOSIAH FRANKLIN,
and
ABIAH his Wife,
lie here interred.
They lived lovingly together in wedlock
fifty-five years.
Without an estate, or any gainful employment,
By constant labor and industry,
with God's blessing,
They maintained a large family
comfortably,
and brought up thirteen children
and seven grandchildren
reputably.
From this instance, reader,
Be encouraged to diligence in thy calling,
And distrust not Providence.
He was a pious and prudent man;
She, a discreet and virtuous woman.
Their youngest son,
In filial regard to their memory,
Places this stone.
J.F. born 1655, died 1744, AEtat 89.
A.F. born 1667, died 1752, —— 95.

By my rambling digressions I perceive myself to be grown old.
I us'd to write more methodically. But one does not dress for private
company as for a publick ball. 'Tis perhaps only negligence.

To return: I continued thus employed in my father's business for
two years, that is, till I was twelve years old; and my brother John,
who was bred to that business, having left my father, married, and set
up for himself at Rhode Island, there was all appearance that I
was destined to supply his place, and become a tallow-chandler.
But my dislike to the trade continuing, my father was under
apprehensions that if he did not find one for me more agreeable,
I should break away and get to sea, as his son Josiah had done,
to his great vexation. He therefore sometimes took me to walk with him,
and see joiners, bricklayers, turners, braziers, etc., at their work,
that he might observe my inclination, and endeavor to fix it on some
trade or other on land. It has ever since been a pleasure to me
to see good workmen handle their tools; and it has been useful to me,
having learnt so much by it as to be able to do little jobs myself
in my house when a workman could not readily be got, and to construct
little machines for my experiments, while the intention of making
the experiment was fresh and warm in my mind. My father at last
fixed upon the cutler's trade, and my uncle Benjamin's son Samuel,
who was bred to that business in London, being about that time
established in Boston, I was sent to be with him some time on liking.
But his expectations of a fee with me displeasing my father,
I was taken home again.

From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money
that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with
the Pilgrim's Progress, my first collection was of John Bunyan's
works in separate little volumes. I afterward sold them to enable
me to buy R. Burton's Historical Collections; they were small
chapmen's books, and cheap, 40 or 50 in all. My father's little
library consisted chiefly of books in polemic divinity, most of
which I read, and have since often regretted that, at a time when I
had such a thirst for knowledge, more proper books had not fallen
in my way since it was now resolved I should not be a clergyman.
Plutarch's Lives there was in which I read abundantly, and I still
think that time spent to great advantage. There was also a book of De
Foe's, called an Essay on Projects, and another of Dr. Mather's,
called Essays to do Good, which perhaps gave me a turn of thinking
that had an influence on some of the principal future events of my life.

This bookish inclination at length determined my father to make me
a printer, though he had already one son (James) of that profession.
In 1717 my brother James returned from England with a press and
letters to set up his business in Boston. I liked it much better
than that of my father, but still had a hankering for the sea.
To prevent the apprehended effect of such an inclination, my father
was impatient to have me bound to my brother. I stood out some time,
but at last was persuaded, and signed the indentures when I was yet
but twelve years old. I was to serve as an apprentice till I was
twenty-one years of age, only I was to be allowed journeyman's wages
during the last year. In a little time I made great proficiency
in the business, and became a useful hand to my brother. I now
had access to better books. An acquaintance with the apprentices
of booksellers enabled me sometimes to borrow a small one, which I
was careful to return soon and clean. Often I sat up in my room
reading the greatest part of the night, when the book was borrowed
in the evening and to be returned early in the morning, lest it
should be missed or wanted.

And after some time an ingenious tradesman, Mr. Matthew Adams, who had
a pretty collection of books, and who frequented our printing-house,
took notice of me, invited me to his library, and very kindly lent
me such books as I chose to read. I now took a fancy to poetry,
and made some little pieces; my brother, thinking it might turn
to account, encouraged me, and put me on composing occasional ballads.
One was called The Lighthouse Tragedy, and contained an account
of the drowning of Captain Worthilake, with his two daughters:
the other was a sailor's song, on the taking of Teach (or Blackbeard)
the pirate. They were wretched stuff, in the Grub-street-ballad style;
and when they were printed he sent me about the town to sell them.
The first sold wonderfully, the event being recent, having made
a great noise. This flattered my vanity; but my father discouraged
me by ridiculing my performances, and telling me verse-makers
were generally beggars. So I escaped being a poet, most probably
a very bad one; but as prose writing bad been of great use to me
in the course of my life, and was a principal means of my advancement,
I shall tell you how, in such a situation, I acquired what little
ability I have in that way.