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TRUE TO HIS HOME
A TALE OF THE BOYHOOD OF FRANKLIN
Books by Hezekiah Butterworth.
=Each, 12mo, cloth, $1.50.=
=The Log School-House on the Columbia.=
With 13 full-page Illustrations by J. CARTER BEARD, E. J. AUSTEN, and
Others.
"This book will charm all who turn its pages. There are few books of
popular information concerning the pioneers of the great Northwest, and
this one is worthy of sincere praise."--_Seattle Post-Intelligencer._
=In the Boyhood of Lincoln.=
_A Story of the Black Hawk War and the Tunker Schoolmaster._ With 12
full-page Illustrations and colored Frontispiece.
"The author presents facts in a most attractive framework of fiction,
and imbues the whole with his peculiar humor. The illustrations are
numerous and of more than usual excellence."--_New Haven Palladium._
=The Boys of Greenway Court.=
_A Story of the Early Years of Washington._ With 10 full-page
Illustrations by H. WINTHROP PEIRCE.
"Skillfully combining fact and fiction, he has given us a story
historically instructive and at the same time entertaining."--_Boston
Transcript._
=The Patriot Schoolmaster;=
_Or, The Adventures of the Two Boston Cannon, the "Adams" and the
"Hancock."_ A Tale of the Minute Men and the Sons of Liberty. With
Illustrations by H. WINTHROP PEIRCE.
The true spirit of the leaders in our War for Independence is pictured
in this dramatic story. It includes the Boston Tea Party and Bunker
Hill; and Adams, Hancock, Revere, and the boys who bearded General Gage,
are living characters in this romance of American patriotism.
=The Knight of Liberty.=
_A Tale of the Fortunes of Lafayette._ With 6 full-page Illustrations.
"No better reading for the young man can be imagined than this
fascinating narrative of a noble figure on the canvas of time."--_Boston
Traveller._
* * * * *
New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue.
[Illustration: LITTLE BEN'S ADVENTURE AS A POET.
(See page 113.)]
TRUE TO HIS HOME
A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin
BY
HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH
AUTHOR OF THE WAMPUM BELT, IN THE BOYHOOD OF LINCOLN, ETC.
The noblest question in the world is, What good may I do in it?
POOR RICHARD
_ILLUSTRATED BY H. WINTHROP PEIRCE_
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1897
COPYRIGHT, 1897,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
PREFACE.
THIS volume is an historical fiction, but the plan of it was suggested
by biography, and is made to include the most interesting and
picturesque episodes in the home side of the life of Benjamin Franklin,
so as to form a connected narrative or picture of his public life.
I have written no book with a deeper sympathy with my subject, for,
although fiction, the story very truthfully shows that the good
intentions of a life which has seemed to fail do not die, but live in
others whom they inspire. Uncle Benjamin Franklin, "the poet," who was
something of a philosopher, and whose visions all seemed to end in
disappointment, deeply influenced his nephew and godson, Benjamin
Franklin, whom he morally educated to become what he himself had failed
to be.
The conduct of Josiah Franklin, the father of Benjamin Franklin, in
comforting his poor old brother in England by naming his fifteenth child
for him, and making him his godfather, is a touching instance of family
affection, to the memory of which the statesman was always true.
Uncle Benjamin Franklin had a library of pamphlets that was very dear to
him, for in the margins of the leaves he had placed the choicest
thoughts of his life amid great political events. He was very poor, and
he sold his library in his old age; we may reasonably suppose that he
parted with it among other effects to get money to come to America, that
he might give his influence to "Little Ben," after his brother had
remembered him in his desolation by giving his name to the boy. The
finding of these pamphlets in London fifty years after the old man was
compelled to sell them was regarded by Benjamin Franklin as one of the
most singular events of his remarkable life.
Mr. Parton, in his Life of Franklin, thus alludes to the circumstance:
A strange occurrence brought to the mind of
Franklin, in 1771, a vivid recollection of his
childhood. A dealer in old books, whose shop he
sometimes visited, called his attention one day to
a collection of pamphlets, bound in thirty
volumes, dating from the Restoration to 1715. The
dealer offered them to Franklin, as he said,
because many of the subjects of the pamphlets were
such as usually interested him. Upon examining the
collection, he found that one of the blank leaves
of each volume contained a catalogue of its
contents, and the price each pamphlet had cost;
there were notes and comments also in the margin
of several of the pieces. A closer scrutiny
revealed that the handwriting was that of his
Uncle Benjamin, the rhyming friend and counselor
of his childhood. Other circumstances combined
with this surprising fact to prove that the
collection had been made by his uncle, who had
probably sold it when he emigrated to America,
fifty-six years before. Franklin bought the
volumes, and gave an account of the circumstance
to his Uncle Benjamin's son, who still lived and
flourished in Boston. "The oddity is," he wrote,
"that the bookseller, who could suspect nothing of
any relation between me and the collector, should
happen to make me the offer of them."
It may please the reader to know that "Mr. Calamity" was suggested by a
real character, and that the incidents in the life of "Jenny,"
Franklin's favorite sister, are true in spirit and largely in detail. It
would have been more artistic to have had Franklin discover Uncle
Benjamin's "pamphlets" later in life, but this would have been, while
allowable, unhistoric fiction.
Says one of the greatest critics ever born in America, in speaking of
the humble birth of Franklin:
That little baby, humbly cradled, has turned out
to be the greatest man that America ever bore in
her bosom or set eyes upon. Beyond all question,
as I think, Benjamin Franklin had the largest mind
that has shone on this side of the sea, widest in
its comprehension, most deep-looking, thoughtful,
far-seeing, the most original and creative child
of the New World.
For the last four generations no man has shed such
copious good influence on America, nor added so
much new truth to popular knowledge; none has so
skillfully organized its ideals into institutions;
none has so powerfully and wisely directed the
nation's conduct and advanced its welfare in so
many respects. No man has so strong a hold on the
habits or the manners of the people.
"The principal question in life is, What good can I do in the world?"
says Franklin. He learned to ask this question in his home in "beloved
Boston." It was his purpose to answer this all-important question after
the lessons that he had received in his early home, to which his heart
remained true through all his marvelous career.
This is the seventh volume of the Creators of Liberty Series of books of
historical fiction, based for the most part on real events, in the
purpose of presenting biography in picture.
The former volumes of this series of books have been very kindly
received by the public, and none of them more generously than the last
volume, The Wampum Belt. For this the writer is very grateful, for he is
a thorough believer in story-telling education, on the Pestalozzi and
Froebel principle that "life must be taught from life," or from the
highest ideals of beneficent character.
H. B.
28 WORCESTER STREET, BOSTON, MASS., _June, 1897_.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--THE FIRST DAY 1
II.--UNCLE BENJAMIN, THE POET 10
III.--BENJAMIN AND BENJAMIN 18
IV.--FRANKLIN'S STORY OF A HOLIDAY IN CHILDHOOD 24
V.--THE BOY FRANKLIN'S KITE 28
VI.--LITTLE BEN'S GUINEA PIG 34
VII.--UNCLE TOM, WHO ROSE IN THE WORLD 39
VIII.--LITTLE BEN SHOWS HIS HANDWRITING TO THE FAMILY 46
IX.--UNCLE BENJAMIN'S SECRET 50
X.--THE STONE WHARF, AND LADY WIGGLEWORTH, WHO FELL
ASLEEP IN CHURCH 56
XI.--JENNY 70
XII.--A CHIME OF BELLS IN NOTTINGHAM 74
XIII.--THE ELDER FRANKLIN'S STORIES 78
XIV.--THE TREASURE-FINDER 83
XV.--"HAVE I A CHANCE?" 92
XVI.--"A BOOK THAT INFLUENCED THE CHARACTER OF A MAN
WHO LED HIS AGE" 99
XVII.--BENJAMIN LOOKS FOR A PLACE WHEREIN TO START IN
LIFE 102
XVIII.--LITTLE BEN'S ADVENTURE AS A POET 111
XIX.--LEAVES BOSTON 132
XX.--LAUGHED AT AGAIN 138
XXI.--LONDON AND A LONG SWIM 148
XXII.--A PENNY ROLL WITH HONOR.--JENNY'S
SPINNING-WHEEL 160
XXIII.--MR. CALAMITY 168
XXIV.--FRANKLIN'S STRUGGLES WITH FRANKLIN 174
XXV.--THE MAGICAL BOTTLE 179
XXVI.--THE ELECTRIFIED VIAL AND THE QUESTIONS IT
RAISED 186
XXVII.--THE GREAT DISCOVERY 192
XXVIII.--HOME-COMING IN DISGUISE 200
XXIX.--"THOSE PAMPHLETS" 209
XXX.--A STRANGE DISCOVERY 213
XXXI.--OLD HUMPHREY'S STRANGE STORY 220
XXXII.--THE EAGLE THAT CAUGHT THE CAT.--DR. FRANKLIN'S
ENGLISH FABLE.--THE DOCTOR'S SQUIRRELS 225
XXXIII.--OLD MR. CALAMITY AGAIN 230
XXXIV.--OLD MR. CALAMITY AND THE TEARING DOWN OF THE
KING'S ARMS 242
XXXV.--JENNY AGAIN 250
XXXVI.--THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.--A MYSTERY 257
XXXVII.--ANOTHER SIGNATURE.--THE STORY OF AUVERGNE SANS
TACHE 267
XXXVIII.--FRANKLIN SIGNS THE TREATY OF PEACE.--HOW GEORGE
III RECEIVES THE NEWS 281
XXXIX.--THE TALE OF AN OLD VELVET COAT 287
XL.--IN SERVICE AGAIN 293
XLI.--JANE'S LAST VISIT 299
XLII.--FOR THE LAST TIME 307
XLIII.--A LESSON AFTER SCHOOL 311
APPENDIX.--FRANKLIN'S FAMOUS PROVERB STORY OF THE OLD
AUCTIONEER 314
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
FACING PAGE
Little Ben's adventure as a poet _Frontispiece_
Uncle Benjamin's secret 52
"Are you going to swim back to London?" 156
A strange discovery 215
The destruction of the royal arms 247
Franklin's last days 295
TRUE TO HIS HOME.
CHAPTER I.
THE FIRST DAY.
IT was the Sunday morning of the 6th of January, 1706 (January 17th, old
style), when a baby first saw the light in a poor tallow chandler's
house on Milk Street, nearly opposite the Old South Church, Boston. The
little stranger came into a large and growing family, of whom at a later
period he might sometimes have seen thirteen children sit down at the
table to very hard and simple fare.
"A baby is nothing new in this family," said Josiah Franklin, the
father. "This is the fifteenth. Let me take it over to the church and
have it christened this very day. There should be no time lost in
christening. What say you, friends all? It is a likely boy, and it is
best to start him right in life at once."
"People do not often have their children christened in church on the day
of birth," said a lusty neighbor, "though if a child seems likely to die
it might be christened on the day of its birth at home."
"This child does not seem likely to die," said the happy tallow
chandler. "I will go and see the parson, and if he does not object I
will give the child to the Lord on this January day, and if he should
come to anything he will have occasion to remember that I thought of the
highest duty that I owed him when he first opened his eyes to the
light."
The smiling and enthusiastic tallow chandler went to see the parson, and
then returned to his home.
"Abiah," he said to his wife, "I am going to have the child christened.
What shall his name be?"
Josiah Franklin, the chandler, who had emigrated to Boston town that he
might enjoy religious freedom, had left a brother in England, who was an
honest, kindly, large-hearted man, and "a poet."
"How would Benjamin do?" he continued; "brother's name. Benjamin is a
family name, and a good one. Benjamin of old, into whose sack Joseph put
the silver cup, was a right kind of a man. What do you say, Abiah
Folger?"
"Benjamin is a good name, and a name lasts for life. But your brother
Benjamin has not succeeded very well in his many undertakings."
"No, but in all his losses he has never lost his good name. His honor
has shown over all. 'A good name is rather to be chosen than great
riches, and loving favor rather than silver or gold.' A man may get
riches and yet be poor. It is he that seeks the welfare of others more
than wealth for himself that lives for the things that are best."
"Josiah, this is no common boy--look at his head. We can not do for him
as our neighbors do for their children. But we can give him a name to
honor, and that will be an example to him. How would Folger do--Folger
Franklin? Father Folger was a poet like your brother Benjamin, and he
did well in life. That would unite the names of the two families."
John Folger, of Norwich, England, with his son Peter, came to this
country in the year 1635 on the same ship that bore the family of Rev.
Hugh Peters. This clergyman, who is known as a "regicide," or king
murderer, and who suffered a most terrible death in London on the
accession of Charles II, succeeded Roger Williams in the church at
Salem. He flourished during the times of Cromwell, but was sentenced to
be hanged, cut down alive, and tortured, his body to be quartered, and
his head exposed among the malefactors, on account of having consented
to the execution of Charles I.
Among Hugh Peters's household was one Mary Morrell, a white slave, or
purchased serving maid. She was a very bright and beautiful girl.
The passengers had small comforts on board the ship. The passage was a
long one, and the time passed heavily.
Now the passengers who were most interesting to each other became
intimate, and young Peter Folger and beautiful Mary Morrell of the
Peterses became very interesting to each other and very social. Peter
Folger began to ask himself the question, "If the fair maid would marry
me, could I not purchase her freedom?" He seems somehow to have found
out that the latter could be done, and so Peter offered himself to the
attractive servant of the Peterses. The two were betrothed amid the
Atlantic winds and the rolling seas, and the roaring ocean could have
little troubled them then, so happy were their anticipations of their
life in the New World.
Peter purchased Mary's freedom of the Peterses, and so he bought the
grandmother of that Benjamin Franklin who was to "snatch the
thunderbolts from heaven and the scepter from tyrants," to sign the
Declaration of Independence which brought forth a new order of
government for mankind, and to form a treaty of peace with England which
was to make America free.
Peter Folger and his bride first settled in Watertown, Mass., where the
young immigrant became a very useful citizen. He studied the Indian
tongue.
About 1660 the family removed to Martha's Vineyard with Thomas Mayhew,
of colonial fame, where Peter was employed as a school teacher and a
land surveyor, and he assisted Mr. Mayhew in his work among the Indians.
He went to Nantucket as a surveyor about 1662, and was induced to remove
there as an interpreter and as land surveyor. He was assigned by the
proprietors a place known as Roger's Field, and later as Jethro Folger's
Lane, now a portion of the Maddequet Road. Their tenth child was Abiah,
born August 15, 1667. She was the second wife of Josiah Franklin, tallow
chandler, of the sign of the Blue Ball, Boston, and the mother of the
boy whom she would like to have inherit so inspiring a name.
Peter Folger, the Quaker poet of the island of Nantucket, was a most
worthy man. He lived at the beginning of the dark times of persecution,
when Baptists and Quakers were in danger of being publicly whipped,
branded, and deported or banished into the wilderness. Stories of the
cruelty that followed these people filled the colonies, and caused the
Quaker's heart to bleed and burn. He wrote a poem entitled A
Looking-glass for the Times, in which he called upon New England to
pause in her sins of intoleration and persecution, and threatened the
judgments foretold in the Bible upon those who do injustice to God's
children.
"Abiah," said the proud father, "I admire the character of your father.
It stood for justice and human rights. But, wife, listen:
"Brother Benjamin has lost all of his ten children but one. I pity him.
Wife, listen: Brother Benjamin is poor through no fault of his, but
because he gave himself and all that he was to his family.
"Listen: It would touch his heart to learn that I had named this boy for
him. It would show the old man that I had not forgotten him, but still
thought of him.
"I can not do much for the boy, but I can give Brother Benjamin a home
with me, and, as he is a great reader, he can instruct the boy by wise
precept and a good example. If the boy will only follow brother's
principles, he may make the name of Benjamin live.
"And once more: if we name the boy Benjamin, it will make Brother
Benjamin feel that he has not lost all, but that he will have another
chance in the world. How glad that would make the poor old man! I would
like to name him as the boy's godfather. I do pity him, don't you? You
have the heart of Peter Folger."
There was a silence.
"Abiah, what now shall the boy's name be?"
"Benjamin."
"You have chosen that name out of your heart. May that name bring you
joy! It ought to do so, since you have given up your own wish and
breathed it out of your heart and conscience. To give up is to gain."
He took up the child.
"Then we will give that name to him now, and I will take the child and
go to the church, and I will name Brother Benjamin as his godfather."
"It is a very cold day for the little one."
"And a healthy one on which to start out in the world. There is nothing
like starting right and with a good name, which may the Lord help this
child to honor! And, Abiah, that He will."
He wrapped the babe up warmly, and looked him full in the face.
Josiah Franklin was a genial, provident, hard-sensed man. He probably
had no prophetic visions; no thought that the little one given him on
this frosty January morning in the breezy town of Boston by the sea
would command senates, lead courts, and sign a declaration of peace that
would make possible a new order of government in the world, could have
entered his mind. If the boy should become a good man, with a little
poetic imagination like his Uncle Benjamin, the home poet, he would be
content.
He opened the door of his one room on the lower floor of his house and
went out into the cold with the child in his arms. In a short time he
returned and laid little Benjamin in the arms of his mother.
"I hope the child's life will hold out as it has begun," he added.
"_Benjamin Franklin, day one; started right. May Heaven help him to get
used to the world!_"
As poor as the tallow chandler was, he was hospitable on that day. He
did not hold the birth of the little one--which really was an event of
greater importance to the world than the birth of a king--as anything
more than the simple growth of an honest family, who had left the
crowded towns and a smithy in old England to enjoy freedom of faith and
conscience and the opportunities of the New World. He wished to live
where he might be free to enjoy his own opinions and to promote a colony
where all men should have these privileges.
The house in which Franklin was born is described as follows:
Its front upon the street was rudely clapboarded,
and the sides and rear were protected from the
inclemencies of a New England climate by large,
rough shingles. In height the house was about
three stories; in front, the second story and
attic projected somewhat into the street, over the
principal story on the ground floor. On the lower
floor of the main house there was one room only.
This, which probably served the Franklins as a
parlor and sitting-room, and also for the family
eating-room, was about twenty feet square, and had
two windows on the street; and it had also one on
the passageway, so as to give the inmates a good
view of Washington Street. In the center of the
southerly side of the room was one of those noted
large fireplaces, situated in a most capacious
chimney; on the left of this was a spacious
closet. On the ground floor, connected with the
sitting-room through the entry, was the kitchen.
The second story originally contained but one
chamber, and in this the windows, door, fireplace,
and closet were similar in number and position to
those in the parlor beneath it. The attic was also
originally one unplastered room, and had a window
in front on the street, and two common attic
windows, one on each side of the roof, near the
back part of it.
Soon after this unprophetic event Josiah Franklin and Abiah his wife
went to live at the sign of the Blue Ball, on what was then the
southeast corner of Hanover and Union Streets. The site of the birth of
Franklin was long made notable as the office of the Boston Post, a
political paper whose humor was once proverbial. The site is still
visited by strangers, and bears the record of the event which was to
contribute so powerful an influence to the scientific and political
history of the world.
Wendell Phillips used to say that there were two kinds of people in the
world--one who went ahead and did something, and another, who showed how
that thing ought to have been done in some other way. The boy belonged
to the former class.
But I doubt if any reader of this volume was ever born to so hard an
estate as this boy. Let us follow him into the story land of childhood.
In Germany every child passes through fairyland, but there was no such
land in Josiah Franklin's tallow shop, except when the busy man
sometimes played the violin in the inner room and sang psalms to the
music, usually in a very solemn tone.
There were not many homes in Boston at this period that had even so near
an approach to fairyland as a violin. Those were hard times for
children, and especially for those with lively imaginations, which gift
little Benjamin had in no common degree. There were Indians in those
times, and supposed ghosts and witches, but no passing clouds bore
angels' chariots; there were no brownies among the wild rose bushes and
the ferns. There was one good children's story in every home--that of
"Joseph" in the Bible, still, as always, the best family story in all
the world.