Ben Franklin's Philadelphia: A Guide

Front Cover
Stackpole Books, 2006 - Biography & Autobiography - 88 pages
  • Visitor information on Franklin sites
  • Convenient walking tour
  • Helpful maps

    In celebration of Benjamin Franklin's 300th birthday, this unique, user-friendly guide follows the Founding Father's footsteps through Philadelphia. The author takes a chronological journey through surviving landmarks from Franklin's time and the sites that preserve his legacy today. On his way, he speaks to curators, park rangers, and even Franklin impersonators to tell the story of this fascinating American icon.

  • From inside the book

    Contents

    III
    1
    V
    15
    VI
    49
    VII
    77
    VIII
    82
    IX
    84
    X
    86
    XI
    Copyright

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    Page 9 - I was fatigued with traveling, rowing, and want of rest ; I was very hungry, and my whole stock of cash consisted of a Dutch dollar, and about a shilling in copper.
    Page 9 - Thus I went up Market Street as far as Fourth Street, passing by the door of Mr. Read, my future wife's father; when she, standing at the door, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous appearance.
    Page 66 - Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they have of it themselves; but I give it fair quarter wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the possessor, and to others that are within his sphere of action; and therefore, in many cases, it would not be altogether absurd if a man were to thank God for his vanity among the other comforts of life.
    Page 5 - By comparing my work afterwards with the original, I discovered many faults and amended them; but I sometimes had the pleasure of fancying that, in certain particulars of small import, I had been lucky enough to improve the method or the language, and this encouraged me to think I might possibly in time come to be a tolerable English writer, of which I was extremely ambitious.
    Page 6 - I was continually wishing for some opportunity of shortening it, which at length offered in a manner unexpected. (I fancy his harsh and tyrannical treatment of me might be a means of impressing me with that aversion to arbitrary power that has stuck to me through my whole life...
    Page 9 - Then I turned and went down Chestnut Street and part of Walnut Street, eating my roll all the way, and coming round found myself again at Market Street wharf, near the boat I came in, to which I went for a draught of the river water; and being filled with one of my rolls, gave the other two to a woman and her child that came down the river in the boat with us, and were waiting to go farther.
    Page 38 - Both house and ground were vested in trustees expressly for the use of any preacher of any religious persuasion who might desire to say something to the people at Philadelphia; the design in building not being to accommodate any particular sect, but the inhabitants in general; so that even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service. Mr. Whitefield in leaving us, went preaching all the way thro
    Page 34 - Taken out of a pew in the Church, some months since, a Common Prayer Book, bound in red, gilt, and lettered DF [Deborah Franklin] on each cover. The person who took it is desired to open it and read the eighth Commandment, and afterwards return it into the same pew again ; upon which no further notice will be taken.

    About the author (2006)

    Tom Huntington lives in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, and is an editor for Stackpole Magazines. He is the former editor of Historic Traveler and American History magazines. His articles on historical topics have appeared in Civil War Times, America's Civil War, American Heritage, Smithsonian, Yankee, America in WWII, Air & Space, and British Heritage.