Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston on January 17, 1705. As a young boy, Franklin already showed signs of independence and inventiveness, evident for example in how he approached swimming.

Wanting to swim faster yet realizing his fingers and toes were preventing him from doing so, Franklin began tinkering with contraptions to help propel him faster through the water. His solution? Fashioning paddles for his hands and flippers for his feet!

His parents planned for Franklin to receive an education and then enter the church. Yet his father Josiah soon realized that his youngest son wasn't fit for the clergy. There are many anecdotes describing young Benjamin’s mischievous ways – and none paint him as especially pious.

For example, Franklin thought the grace his father recited before each meal was tedious. So after the meat for that winter had been salted and stored in a barrel, Franklin asked his father if he would instead say grace over the barrel, as it would save time!

Franklin spent just two years enrolled at a local school, where he was taught writing and arithmetic. Then, at just 10 years old, he started work as an apprentice. First he worked under his father, and then with his older brother James, who founded the New England Courant, the first independent newspaper in Boston.

Eventually Franklin grew tired of working alongside his brother, chafing at his subordinate role as an apprentice – especially since he had managed the newspaper on his own when James was away in England.

So even though he was still a teenager, Franklin decided to strike out on his own instead.