Benjamin Franklin

Ben Franklin was born on January 17, 1706 in Boston Massachusetts. He had 10 full siblings and 7 half siblings as his father married twice. All together there were 17 children. His father, Josiah Franklin was a fabric dyer when he lived in England, after moving to Boston in 1682, he became a tallow chandler, which means he made candles and soap from tallow, which is animal fat. Benjamin Franklin went to South Grammar School (now Boston Latin School) for less than two years starting in September 18. He was 8 years old when he began. This is the only formal education Ben had. He became a writer, inventor and polymath through his own reading and studies later on.

Ben's father wanted him to be a clergyman but was not able to afford to send him to many years of religious schooling. Instead young Benjamin was apprenticed to his older brother James who owned a printing shop. There Ben learned the skills of printing, writing and typesetting. Typesetting was the method used in those days to print paper where letters were placed tightly together, covered with ink and pressed onto paper. As an adult these skills would make Franklin famous as an author, publisher and printer when he opened his own printing shop some years later.

On September 1, 1730 Benjamin married Deborah Read. They had three children, two boys and girl. His eldest boy William became the last royal Governor of New Jersey. This put him on the opposite side to his father during the American revolution. Ben and his son never reconciled and he fled the colonies with the retreating British Army. Franklin's daughter Sarah was a strong patriot during the Revolutionary war and helped raised money for the Continental Army and made clothes for the soldiers during the winter at Valley Forge.

Franklin was appointed by the second Continental Congress to the 'Committee of Five'. They were given the task of drafting the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson wrote the original draft, but with strong input from the other members of the group.

Franklin voted to accept the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, famously saying that "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." He signed the document along with the other members of Congress in August.
Ben Franklin served Congress in various important positions, including as Commissioner to Canada, Ambassador to France and as a member of the Committee of Secret Correspondence dealing with spying and foreign intelligence.

Though not during the period of the Revolutionary War, but still a significant moment in the founding of the United States, Ben Franklin was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and a signer of the United States Constitution in 1787.

Benjamin Franklin had suffered for many years from a condition called empyema, a condition which causes the lungs to fill with pus, in Franklin's case, due to pleurisy or inflammation of the lungs. In April of 1790, Franklin was bedridden and suffered with heavy breathing for many days due to his fluid filled lungs. Soon an abscess burst in his lungs and he went into a coma, passing away on April 17, 1790 with his grandsons William Temple and Bennie at his side.