Eagle Feathers #298 – Poor Richard

By Bob (Monty) Doherty

E Pluribus Unum, the Latin phrase meaning “Out of many, one” is on the Great Seal of the United States and was proposed to and accepted by the Continental Congress in August, 1776. The motto meant that one indivisible nation, the United States of America, was being formed from thirteen separate colonies. One of the three men assigned with creating the seal of this emerging country was Benjamin Franklin. 

Who was he?

• He was born in Boston about three miles from Somerville on January 17, 1706 and was the youngest of fifteen children. He left school after the second grade and became a printer’s apprentice to his older brother James.
• He traveled to many places and settled in Philadelphia where he never stopped learning.

What did he do?   

• Historically, he signed the Declaration of Independence and was one of the five-members of the committee which drafted it. He was a scientist, author, statesman and prolific inventor.
• In 1732, Ben Franklin under the pseudonym Richard Saunders published the first issue of Poor Richard’s Almanac.
• For over 25 years, close to every farmer had a copy of an almanac near his fireplace. In Franklin’s lifetime, the almanac was one of the most popular forms of literature in America.
• As an inventor, he created things such as bifocals, the Franklin Stove, the odometer, the glass armonica and swimming fins. His invention of the lightning rod proved the link of lightning and electricity. One of his earliest lightning rods protected our Powder House.
• Closer to home, the first American or Grand Union Flag that flew over Prospect Hill was designed and delivered to General Washington by Franklin. The first Grand Union Flag flown at sea was on a vessel commanded by Captain John Paul Jones. Before the King of France gave this ship to Jones, he named it Bonhomme Richard in honor of Franklin. Its translation is said to be Good Man Richard.
• During the American Revolution, he was Ambassador to France.

In 1790, the Town of Franklin, Massachusetts, the home of America’s first public lending library, received its first books from a donation from Benjamin Franklin.  Franklin or Poor Richard said “The doors of wisdom are never shut.”

At one time, Franklin Hall in Union Square honored him with its lecture series.

During his lifetime, Franklin was one of the most talked about persons in the world and was by far the most widely known and most eminent of Americans. Today, his image graces our one-hundred-dollar bill.