Ben walked down Market Street and looked around. Philadelphia was so different from Boston! Instead of the wooden houses he was used to, red brick buildings lined the streets. Instead of winding and curving like the streets of Boston, the roads here were straight and orderly. And many of the people he heard on the streets were not speaking English.
William Penn had founded the city just fifty years before. He was an English Quaker who wanted to create a place where people from different backgrounds and religions could live and work together. Penn had established a government based on the principles of religious freedom, trial by jury, and voting for representatives. He named his city Philadelphia, “City of Brotherly Love.” People from many places across the ocean—Germany, England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland—flocked to the new city.
Philadelphia was just part of Pennsylvania, the large area of land that British King Charles II had granted Penn in 1681. The Penn family governed Pennsylvania (the name means “Penn’s woods”) until the American Revolution. At the time when Ben Franklin arrived in Philadelphia, there were twelve English colonies along the east coast of North America: Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
Ben would have plenty of time to find out about his adopted colony. But first, he had to find something to eat. He asked directions to the nearest bakery.
Have you any biscuits? he asked the baker.
No, came the brief reply.
Ben tried again. How about a three-penny loaf, then?
We have none such, the baker said firmly.
Ben was growing desperate. Then I’ll take three pennyworth of anything you have, he said.
To his delight, he received not one, but three large, puffy rolls. He stuffed two of them into his pockets and one into his mouth.
He continued his stroll down Market Street. A girl about his age leaned out of a doorway and stifled a giggle. The tall young man with the roll in his mouth looked so ridiculous!
Ben pulled the two rolls from his pocket and gave them to a mother and child who had traveled with him on the boat. Then he fell in behind a group of clean, neatly dressed people. They were all walking in the same direction.
After a while, Ben realized that the people were Quakers, on their way to Sunday Meeting. Curious, he followed them into the meetinghouse and sat on one of the hard wooden pews. He was surprised when no one said anything. In Quaker services, no preacher stands up to give a sermon. Members of the congregation are free to speak when the spirit moves them.
Ben was so tired, and the meeting was so quiet, that he soon dozed off. The Quakers kindly let him sleep until the meeting was over.
That night Ben found a bed at a local lodging house. On Monday morning, he tried to clean up as best he could. Then he set off for Andrew Bradford’s print shop.
He had arrived a few days too late. Bradford had already hired another hand to replace Aquila Rose. There was, however, a new printer in town. Perhaps, Bradford suggested, Franklin might want to try him?
Ben found the new printer hard at work, composing a poem in memory of the same Aquila Rose. Samuel Keimer bent over the type case, his long straggly beard brushing the table. He had a unique way of writing. Instead of setting the poem down with pen and paper first, he placed the letters for each line into the type case as he composed it—the words came right out of his head and went straight into the press!
Franklin looked around at the old, broken-down press and small stock of type. He could tell the shop was struggling. Keimer, he decided, was definitely an odd fish.
But luckily, the printer did need an assistant. Ben had found himself a job! Within a few days, he had a place to live as well. It was at the home of John Read, next to Keimer’s shop on Market Street. Read’s daughter Deborah was the very same young lady who had laughed at Ben the morning he came into town.
Luckily, the chest with his clothes and books had finally arrived from Boston. Ben was once again scrubbed and well dressed. Even Miss Read had to agree that he made a respectable appearance.
Now it was time for Ben to get to work.
Printing was a nearly 300-year-old profession in 1723. Yet it had not changed much since the 1440s, when German printer Johannes Gutenberg had invented the wooden press and movable type. “Movable type” means that each metal letter of the alphabet can be moved and used more than once. In a print shop, metal letters were kept in trays called cases. The upper sections, or upper cases, held the capital letters. The lower cases held the small letters. Today, capital letters are still called “upper case,” while small letters are called “lower case.”
Typesetters, or compositors, would set the type on a composing stick. There they put letters into words and words into sentences. The words had to be set upside down and backwards, so that their reverse image on paper would be right side up and forward. It took a lot of skill to be able to compose. Compositors were prized for their speed and accuracy. Not surprisingly, Ben was an exceptionally good compositor.
Once set, the lines of type would be locked into a metal frame and the frame placed on the printing press. The printer inked the type with two leather balls. Then he slid the type under the press, or platen. Pulling a handle called the devil’s tail, he pressed the dampened paper against the inked type. When he removed the printed paper, he hung it on a clothesline, called a fly, to dry. The papers were known as “flyers.”
Operating a printing press took strength and agility. Young Ben was also a quick, tireless printer.
Two printers working a ten-hour day could turn out almost 2,000 sheets of paper. This did not include the time it took to compose the type. In the summer, a working day could run as long as twelve or fourteen hours, or as long as daylight lasted. Printing houses were much more productive in the summer than in the winter. No one wanted to compose by the flickering light of a candle. It led to too many mistakes.
What did a colonial print shop print? Any and all paper products the community needed. The government hired printers to print paper money, speeches, laws, land deeds, and other documents. Churches hired them to print sermons, hymns, and church announcements. For the community at large, the press printed books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, almanacs, prayer books, advertisements, lottery tickets, invitations, schoolbooks, and blank legal forms. A colonial print shop was a bookstore, stationery store, and home entertainment center rolled into one!
When Ben arrived in Philadelphia, the town already had two print shops. To someone as ambitious as Ben, they meant competition. Someday, Ben wanted to have his own print shop and become the best printer in Philadelphia. He sized up his rivals. Although Keimer was a good compositor—and a sometime poet—he knew nothing of presswork. Bradford, on the other hand, did not have the writing skills necessary for the job. He was “very illiterate,” Ben judged.
It looked as though Philadelphia could use someone with Benjamin Franklin’s gifts.
As he was to do all his life, Ben immediately made friends in his new town. At age seventeen, Ben was an attractive young man. Nearly six feet tall with a frank, open face, he attracted people with his charm and chattiness. He sought out other young men who were “lovers of reading.” He worked hard, saved money, and tried to forget about his old life in Boston.
But he couldn’t escape that easily. Six months after he arrived in Philadelphia, his past caught up with him.
Ben had a brother-in-law, Robert Homes, who was captain of a trading ship. Homes heard Ben was in Philadelphia and sent him a letter. He assured Ben that if he returned to Boston, his friends and family would forgive him. Ben immediately wrote back, explaining his reasons for leaving. He had no intention of returning, he said.
Homes happened to open the letter in the company of Sir William Keith, the governor of Pennsylvania. Keith was amazed that such a young man could write so well. Surely such talent should be encouraged!
One day Ben Franklin and Samuel Keimer were working together near the window of Keimer’s shop. A very well dressed man walked over from across the street—and knocked at the shop door. It was Governor Keith!
Keimer became very excited. Perhaps the governor had come to see him on important business!
He was shocked when the governor asked to speak to Ben instead. And he was even more put out when such a distinguished man invited the boy to a meeting! Would Mr. Franklin care to accompany him to a nearby tavern for a friendly glass and a chat? the governor asked. Surprised, Ben agreed. As for Keimer, Ben wrote later, he “stared like a pig poisoned.”
After some small talk, Keith laid out his proposal. He promised Ben lots of government business if Ben would set up his own print shop. Keith was sure that Ben’s father would lend him the money to pay for it. And to convince Josiah Franklin that the offer was sincere, the governor would write Ben a letter of recommendation.
So seven months after Ben ran away from home, he returned to Boston triumphant, with £5 silver in his pocket. Decked out in a brand-new suit and watch, he looked very different from the young man who had sneaked on board the ship in the Boston harbor. His parents, who hadn’t known whether Ben was alive or dead, were very happy to see him.
His brother James, though, was not pleased at all. Ben visited the print shop in all his finery and strutted in front of the other workers, boasting about his success in Philadelphia. They, of course, were very impressed. But James felt insulted.
Ben was disappointed when his father refused to give him the funds to set up his own business. Josiah Franklin was a thoughtful and practical man. He figured that Ben was still a boy. How could the governor think that a seventeen-year-old had the experience or wisdom to manage his own business? Keith might have good intentions, Josiah decided, but he could not have much common sense.
Josiah told Ben that he should continue to work hard and save his earnings. Then, when Ben was twenty-one, Josiah would provide his son with the rest of the money to open his shop.
Ben had to be content with this promise. Armed with his parents’ love and blessings, he returned to Philadelphia. His old friend James Collins also came with him, eager to seek his own fortune.
Never mind, Governor Keith told Ben when he heard of Josiah Franklin’s decision. Since he will not set you up, I will do it myself.
Ben was excited. Soon he would have just what he’d always wanted—a print shop of his own!