PHILADELPHIA – Trail Benjamin Franklin’s shadow along the
cobblestone sidewalks in Philadelphia’s compact historic district
and see where this self-made man worked, worshiped, experimented,
created and helped shape a new nation.
Stand behind delegates’ desks in Independence Hall and imagine
Franklin’s voice at the signing of the Declaration of Independence:
“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang
separately.”
Trace Franklin’s giant footprint that still covers his adopted
city, from libraries (he established the first lending library in
1731), to fire departments (he prompted the formation of
Philadelphia’s first volunteer fire company in 1736), to
universities (he founded the Philadelphia Academy in 1751, which
became the University of Pennsylvania, America’s oldest
university), to hospitals (he led a fund drive to build
Pennsylvania Hospital in 1751, the nation’s first hospital), to
insurance companies (he organized the first fire insurance company
in 1752).
Born in Boston, one of 17 children, Franklin rose from humble roots
to international acclaim. And his maxims, published for 25 years in
“Poor Richard’s Almanack,” still are quoted: “Time is money”;
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” and “Early to
bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”
And because he preached frugality – “A penny saved is a penny
earned” – Franklin might be embarrassed today that his face
appears on the $100 bill, and not the 1-cent coin.
While much has been written and broadcast in biographical works
about Franklin, none may match extensive celebrations to
commemorate the 300th anniversary of his birth Jan. 17, 2006. The
federal Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary Commission, headquartered at
the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, plans major national and
international festivities.
Philadelphia, which at the time of our nation’s founding was the largest and richest city in America and served as the
U.S. capital for 10 years, even now has extensive exhibits in the
historic district on its favorite adopted son.
“I don’t know that I can ever say enough about Ben Franklin, the
way he’s affected America, the way he’s affected Philadelphia, the
way he’s affected me,” says Joseph Becton, a National Park Service
ranger who appeared in an Emmy award-winning PBS documentary,
“Benjamin Franklin, an Extraordinary Life, an Electric Mind.”
Becton is stationed at Franklin Court, part of Independence
National Historic Park, off Market Street between Third and Fourth
streets, where the only house Franklin owned once stood. A steel
“ghost structure” by architect Robert Venturi outlines the space
Franklin’s 3-story, 10-room brick house occupied. Visitors can peer
through portals to see foundations of the house. At age 80,
Franklin built an addition to the house that expanded it by half.
An underground museum sprawls beneath the courtyard, filled with
paintings of the Franklin family and reproductions of some of
Franklin’s inventions. Watch a 20-minute film about the fascinating
figure and pick up a telephone receiver at “The Franklin
Exchange” phone bank to hear what numerous distinguished
characters had to say about Franklin.
Listen to Becton as he accompanies a tourist through the museum.
“I call her Deborah the Devoted,” Becton says as he stands in
front of a painting of Franklin’s wife, Deborah.
He explains that Deborah kept the house running while her diplomat
husband lived for an extensive time in Europe. And Deborah didn’t
balk when, a year after they were married, Franklin brought home
William, his son out of wedlock,and asked her to raise him.
Benjamin and Deborah also had a son, Francis Folger Franklin, who
died of smallpox at age 4, and a daughter, Sarah.
Had Deborah told her husband to go fly a kite – of course, it was
Franklin’s idea for his famous electrical experiment – no one would
have blamed her because Franklin lived a continent away for more
than 12 years.
“She really was the person who built that house,” Becton says.
“She ensured that all his businesses kept going while he was gone.
Can you imagine a 21st-century husband doing that to his wife? She
would divorce him. Deborah didn’t. She ran all the businesses and
still was waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting for him to return.”
Becton points out some of Franklin’s inventions displayed in the
museum: the Sedan Chair, in which state prisoners carried him to
and from the Constitutional Convention where he was helping write
the Constitution in his early 80s, suffering from gout; the Library
Chair, which has a platform that folds down to sit on and folds up
into a stair step to reach books on higher shelves; and the
Franklin Stove, an iron furnace heater that allowed wood to burn
safer on a grate and gave off more heat than a fireplace.
Becton’s favorite Franklin invention is the armonica, a “new-age”
musical instrument developed in 1761, consisting of 14-18 glasses
of varying sizes nested inside one another and mounted on a
rotating shaft turned by a foot treadle. Becton sits down to play a
plaintive “Auld Lang Syne,” a tune he says Ben Franklin would
have played and sung often, rubbing water around the glass rims to
get the desired tones.
Becton says he was depressed when he first was transferred to
Franklin Court after being at Independence Hall.
“That backwater? I thought. And then I started to play the
armonica and to learn more about the author, statesman, citizen,
diplomat, scientist, abolitionist, musician. After 4 or 5 months,
Ben Franklin, long long dead, had actually won me over. I could see
the accomplishments he had made and the legacy he had left …
“We think of Horatio Alger rising from the lowest class to the
highest class. Well, Ben Franklin, one child out of 17 whose father
was a candlemaker, ended his life being able to create a new
nation. That’s the American dream. And no matter what station we’re
born to, if we work hard, save our money, we can rise to the
highest station. And that was Franklin’s life.”
Back in the courtyard, head toward Market Street to experience the
rest of Franklin Court. Restored Colonial buildings include the
Printing Office and Bindery, where Park Service rangers give
printing demonstrations; the U.S. Postal Service Museum, featuring
Pony Express pouches and originals of Franklin’s “Pennsylvania
Gazette” newspaper; and a working U.S. Post Office, where the
postmark “B. Free Franklin” is still used to cancel stamps.
Franklin adopted that signature when he was postmaster of the
American colonies, believed to refer to Pennsylvania’s quest for
freedom from the British government. This is the only post office
that doesn’t fly the American flag because there wasn’t one in
1775.
Nearby Carpenter’s Hall, also part of Independence National
Historical Park, is where the First Continental Congress met Sept.
5-Oct. 26, 1774, to deliberate grievances against the mother
country, Great Britain. Franklin was away in England then. But he
was at Carpenter’s Hall later for significant clandestine meetings
with a French secret agent in December 1775, seeking support of
King Louis XVI in the struggle for freedom from the British. The
meetings eventually led to military aid from France.
The Georgian-designed Independence Hall, a World Heritage Site
built as the Pennsylvania state house between 1732 and 1753, stands
as the heart and soul of Independence National Historic Park.
Considered the birthplace of the United States, it is where the
Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, the Articles of
Confederation uniting the 13 colonies were ratified in 1781 and the
Constitution setting out the new nation’s basic laws was adopted in
1787.
Its steeple was intended to hold what now is known as the Liberty
Bell, but the 2,080-pound bell cracked and was removed long ago.
The bell now holds a place of honor down the street in a new $13
million, 13,000-square-foot center opened in October. Originally
called the State House Bell, it was rung to announce the first
public reading of the Declaration of Independence on July 8, 1776,
but didn’t get its current name until 1835, when abolitionists
adopted it as their symbol because of its inscription: “Proclaim
liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants
thereof.”
The bell last rang on George Washington’s birthday anniversary Feb.
22, 1846, when an earlier crack fractured further and was deemed
unfixable.
Original bells still toll at Christ Church, where Deborah Franklin
had pew number 70 near the back. A National Historical Landmark,
the brick Georgian church was constructed between 1727 and 1744 and
was called “The Nation’s Church” because several founding fathers
were members. The church sanctuary is simple yet elegant, with
arched ceiling and carved wooden pillars.
Franklin managed lotteries that helped build the bell tower and
steeple, completed in 1754. Lightning struck the steeple in 1908 –
did the church not have one of Franklin’s famous lightning rods? –
but the structure was repaired.
The church ran out of burial ground space, so in 1719 it purchased
a plot of land about four blocks away, then considered “on the
outskirts of town.” Here rest Philadelphia’s who’s who, including
Deborah and Benjamin Franklin, plus four other signers of the
Declaration of Independence. (Franklin was the only founding father
to sign all three of America’s charters of freedom: the Declaration
of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.)
Franklin died April 17, 1790, at age 84. Nearly 20,000 people –
half of Philadelphia – attended his funeral.
Pennies, nickels and quarters visitors have thrown for good luck
top the simple, marble headstone with a slight crack at Franklin’s
grave, where two small American flags poke out at the foot.
The inscription reads, “Benjamin and Deborah Franklin, 1790.”
Deborah died 16 years earlier, in 1774, at age 66, having suffered
a stroke while her husband was in Europe.
Franklin left instructions in his will that he be buried by the
side of his wife “with as little expense or ceremony as may be.”
Although Franklin had written a mock epitaph when he was a young
man, it is only a plaque not far from the grave:
“The body of B. Franklin, Printer. Like the cover of an old book.
Its contents torn out and stript of its lettering and gilding. Lies
here. Food for worms. But the work shall not be lost. For it will,
as he believed, appear once more in a new and more elegant edition,
corrected and improved by the author.”
Franklin apparently never intended the epitaph to be used. His
gravestone was prepared exactly as he had requested in his will.
After all, a penny saved is a penny earned.
—————————————-
If you go
HISTORIC SITES: History buffs will find plenty to see in
Philadelphia, the cradle of American liberty. And the best way to
see the historic district is on foot.
Start at the Independence Visitor Center, Sixth and Market streets,
215-965-7676, 800-537-7676 or www.independencevisitorcenter.com.
The center distributes free tickets for tours of the Independence
Hall Museum (open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.), where the Declaration of
Independence and U.S. Constitution were signed. Walk-up tickets are
available for same-day visits, starting at 8:30 a.m., and may be
gone by 10:30 a.m. during peak seasons. Tickets are required from
March 1 to Dec. 31, except July 4, Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.
Tickets may be reserved up to a year in advance through the
National Park Service reservation system for a $1.50-per-ticket
fee. Call 800-967-2283 or go to www.nps.gov/inde. For more
information, call 215-965-2305.
The center also sells tickets for various attractions and tours,
and can help you plan what to see in the Philadelphia area.
No tickets are needed for the Liberty Bell Center, open from 9 a.m.
to 5 p.m. although hours may vary by season. Enter security along
Market Street between Fifth and Sixth streets. The new center,
which opened last fall, includes exhibits about the Liberty Bell,
the nation’s foremost icon of freedom. The cracked bell is
displayed in a glass chamber in the center, with Independence Hall
visible in the background.
Franklin Court, the complex where Benjamin Franklin’s house stood,
Market Street between Third and Fourth streets. A steel “ghost
structure” in the courtyard outlines where the house was.
Franklin Court Underground Museum, below the courtyard, open daily
9 a.m.-5 p.m.
Also part of the Franklin Court complex are a working U.S. Post
Office, 316 Market St., where stamps are canceled with Franklin’s
“B. Free Franklin” postmark, open Monday-Saturday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.;
and the Printing Office and Bindery, 320 Market St., open daily 9
a.m.-5 p.m., where printing demonstrations are given.
Christ Church, 20 N. American St., 215-922-1695. Open daily 9
a.m.-5 p.m.
Christ Church Burial Ground, Fifth and Arch streets, open
Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Sunday, noon-4 p.m. Suggested
donation: $2 adults, $1 students. Tours lasting 35 minutes are
given five times daily; fee, $3 adults, $2 students.
Carpenter’s Hall, 320 Chestnut St., 215-925-0167,
www.carpentershall.org. Open daily except Monday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
Site of the First Continental Congress. The Carpenters’ Company is
the oldest trade guild in the U.S.
Betsy Ross House, 239 Arch St., 215-686-1252. Some debate this was
the actual house Betsy Ross lived in. But no one has proved it
wasn’t. So, millions of visitors come to see where she made the
first flag of the United States.
Elfreth’s Alley, the nation’s oldest residential street, Second
Street between Arch and Chestnut streets. Museum open for tours, 10
a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday, noon-5 p.m. Sunday. Admission: $2
adults, $1 children 6-18. 215-574-0560; www.elfrethsalley.org. Historic characters, music and special programs
May-August.
National Constitution Center, 525 Arch St., 215-409-6600,
www.constitutioncenter.org. Admission: $6 adults, $5 children and
seniors. Year-old center dedicated to honoring the U.S.
Constitution features inter-active exhibits, films, actors.
City Tavern: This reconstructed restaurant at Second and Walnut
streets, with food “inspired” by 18th-century Colonial America,
is more than shtick, even though employees are dressed in period
costume. The food is good (dinner entrees range from about $18 to
$28). Two ales are said to be from George Washington and Thomas
Jefferson’s recipes. The original tavern on this site was the
unofficial meeting place for the First Continental Congress in 1774
and was where delegates celebrated the first anniversary of
independence on July 4, 1777. Lunch starting at 11:30 a.m., dinner
from 4 p.m. Reservations: 215-413-1443.
Reading Terminal Market, 12th and Arch streets, 215-922-2317, open
from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday-Saturday; Pennsylvania Dutch merchants
operate from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Thursday-Saturday. The market dates to 1893 when trains came into
the train shed. It features more than 80 family-run vendors selling
everything from meats, poultry and eggs, to housewares, crafts,
souvenirs and Philly cheesesteaks. Don’t miss this place.
GETTING THERE: United Airlines, US Airways and Frontier Airlines
(beginning May 23) fly nonstop between Denver and Philadelphia.
MORE INFORMATION: Independence Visitor Center, 215-965-7676;
www.gophila.com.
