DID YOU KNOW?
After a brief period back in the U.S., Franklin lived primarily in London, England until 1775. While he was abroad, the British government began in the mid-1760s to impose a series of regulatory measures to assert greater control over its American colonies. In 1766, Franklin testified in the British Parliament against the Stamp Act of 1765, which required that all legal documents, newspapers, books, playing cards, and other printed materials in the American colonies carry a tax stamp. Although the Stamp Act was repealed in 1766, additional regulatory measures followed, leading to ever-increasing ant-British sentiment and eventual armed uprising in the American colonies.
Anyway, Franklin returned to Philadelphia in May 1775, shortly after the Revolutionary War (1775-83) had begun, and was selected to serve as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, America’s governing body
Benjamin Franklin’s grave in Philadelphia
Assembly, to which he was elected in 1751. Over several years, he worked to settle a tax dispute and other issues involving descendants of William Penn, the owners of the colony of Pennsylvania.
at the time. In 1776, he was part of the five-member committee that helped draft the Declaration of Independence, in which the 13 American colonies declared their freedom from British rule. That same year, Congress sent Franklin to France to enlist that nation’s help with the Revolutionary War. In February 1778, the French signed a military alliance with America and went on to provide soldiers, supplies, and money that proved critical to America’s victory in the war.
As minister to France starting in 1778, Franklin helped negotiate and draft the 1783 Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War as I already mentioned. In 1785, Franklin left France and returned once again to Philadelphia. In 1787, he was a Pennsylvania delegate to the Constitutional Convention. At the end of the convention, in September 1787 he urged his fellow delegates to support the heavily debated new document. The U.S. Constitution was ratified by the required nine states in June 1788, and George Washington was inaugurated as America’s first president in April 1789.
Lastly, Franklin died a year later, at age 84, on April 17, 1790, in Philadelphia. Following a funeral that was attended by an estimated 20,000 people, he was buried in Philadelphia’s Christ Church cemetery, and you will find that Benjamin Franklin’s Grave is next door to a Holiday Inn I stayed at while on vacation in Philadelphia in 2003. Wow! What a very busy person! I hope you learned something new about this well-traveled man!
Here is a link below to a museum on Franklin in Philidelphia and a video. https://www.visitphilly.com/things-to-do/attractions/benjamin-franklin-museum/ And also a second museum website. https://www.nps.gov/inde/planyourvisit/benjaminfranklinmuseum.htm