THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
EDITED BY CHARLES W ELIOT LLD
P F COLLIER & SON COMPANY, NEW YORK (1909)





INTRODUCTORY NOTE


BENJAMIN FRANKLIN was born in Milk Street, Boston, on January
6, 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
Courant." 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,"
to which he contributed many essays, and which he made a medium for