From Dave Brigham:
Benjamin Franklin was quite likely the coolest of our Founding Fathers. A self-made polymath (he dropped out of school at age 10 to help in his father's soap-making business), he was an inventor (bifocals; the Franklin stove; the armonica, an instrument made of "singing" glasses that I'm a little bit obsessed with; the flexible catheter), a scientist, a diplomat and one of the guys who helped draft the U.S. Constitution. Like all the Founders, and, let's face it, all humans, Franklin was a complicated person. He was a slaveholder who freed his slaves after a relatively short time. He had a child out of wedlock, and moved to France for a decade without his wife, who died while he was gone.
He was born in Boston, on January 17, 1706, as this building facade on Milk Street announces to the world.
Franklin lived in a house on this spot for six years with his father Josiah, mother Abiah and his 16 siblings, per this web site. He was the 15th and youngest son. He lived with his family in Boston -- the last 11 years at the corner of Hanover and Union streets -- until 1723. He was 17 years old when he decided to leave for Philadelphia, mainly in an effort to escape a domineering older brother who was in charge of him at a printing shop.
The building where Franklin was born was destroyed by fire in 1811. The building currently at 17 Milk Street dates to 1874, and was designed by by Robert Peabody & Johnathan Stearns. This building and the adjacent Transcript Building are being incorporated into a new development known as One Milk Street, which, when completed, will feature new storefronts along Washington and Milk streets.
My final argument that Benjamin Franklin was the hippest Founding Father is the fact that the Beastie Boys name-check him in "Sounds of Science" from the Paul's Boutique album.
And here's your headline explainer:
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