Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin - Harvard classics - Volume 1 - PDF ebook
Contains :
v. 1. Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin; Journal of John Woolman; Fruits of Solitude/William Penn-
Benjamin Franklin was born in Milk Street, Boston, on January 6 {January 17, new style), 1706. His father, Josiah Franklin, was a tallow chandler who married twice, and of his seventeen children, Benjamin was the youngest son. His schooling ended at ten, and at twelve he was bound apprentice to his brother James, a printer, who published the "New England Cour^ ant.'' To this journal, he became a contributor and later was for a time its nominal editor. But the brothers quarreled, and Benjamin ran away, going first to New York, and thence to Philadelphia, where he arrived in October 1723.
He soon obtained work as a printer, but after a few months he was induced by Governor Keith to go to London, where, finding Keith's promises empty, he again worked as a compositor till he was brought back to Philadelphia by a merchant named Denman, who gave him a position in his business. On Denman's death, he returned to his former trade and shortly set up a printing house of his own from which he published "The Pennsylvania Gazette