This Week's Story

Imagine being a skilled writer, publisher, printer, inventor, business entrepreneur, retiring at age 42 with enough money to pay your bills, AND THEN starting a "world" of experiments.

This Week’s Story relives American history and the Bible through brief inspiring stories presented on mp3 audio recordings and text for reading.

Yes! Possible solutions! part five

Ben Franklin was uncommon. His calendar of achievements exceeded the speed limits. He arrived January 17, 1706 in Boston, in Massachusetts Bay Colony in America. That day was usually freezing cold, especially when the wind was whipping off the Atlantic Ocean.

Ben had a big family to welcome him. He was the fifteenth child and the tenth boy.

When he was eight, he went to school for two years. His father could not afford to send him longer. At age ten he began working for his father making soap and candles. He did not like the work. His father arranged for him to work under a formal contract at his brother’s print shop. By age sixteen he was secretly writing newspaper articles that were being published.

At age seventeen he broke his contract by running away to Philadelphia. He soon had a new printing job. Reading during any available time was his passion. He continued writing.

At age eighteen he crossed the Atlantic Ocean to buy printing equipment in London. The money promised to him by the governor of Pennsylvania, who was impressed with Franklin’s skills was not delivered. Franklin arrived in a huge city alone and penniless. He soon found a job as a printer.

By age twenty-four he owned his own printing company. He astonished observers with his cleverness and seven-days a week work ethic. He started a newspaper, which became one of the leading American newspapers. He got married. Again, he was writing a popular newspaper column under a fictitious name. He gathered information for publishing a yearly almanac. It became a huge success in the 13 Colonies, England, and France.

When 1748 arrived, Benjamin retired. He was forty-two years old with another forty-two years to live. With money resources he had developed, he was receiving funds equal to the salary the governor of Pennsylvania received.

He wrote, “I am in a fair way to having no other tasks than such as I shall like to give myself, and of enjoying what I look upon as a great happiness: leisure to read, study and make experiments, and converse…on such points as may produce something for the common benefits of mankind, uninterrupted by the little cares and fatigues of business.”

For years he had been inventing. He was especially curious about electricity. New ideas for inventions were springing into his mind daily. Examples were fireplaces that kept smoke out of eyes. Fresh air was channeled so as to more quickly warm a room. He designed bifocals so he could see at different ranges. An odometer, satisfied people’s curiosity about distances they travelled. A musical instrument called an armonica had the unique opportunity of having a piece composed for it by Amadeus Mozart.

Ben was uninterested in making money by patenting his inventions. Instead, he wrote, “As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by an invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.”

Tensions came as France, England, and Spain attempted to absorb more of America into their control. Join us as Benjamin becomes a military advisor and diplomat.

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