THE Pennsylvania Magazine OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY

Benjamin Franklin Slept Here

VER the years a vast body of lore, both authenticated and I fanciful, has accumulated regarding the houses in which O George Washington is reputed to have slept. No such corpus has become associated with Benjamin Franklin, however, an omission for which he himself is largely to blame. Perhaps because in Philadelphia he was aware that everyone knew where he lived, that city's best known eighteenth-century citizen rarely bothered to mention in his writings his various resi- dences there. As a result, the general impression obtains that he lived in no more than three different dwellings during his long association with Philadelphia: in John Read's house; in the property on the north side of Market Street below Second where he had his shop and printing office; and in his final home on the opposite side of the same street, but two squares west between Third and Fourth. Nothing could be farther from the facts. Between his first arrival in Philadelphia in October, 1723, at the age of seventeen, and April, 1763, forty years later, when he began to build that final home, Franklin and/or his family occupied at least a dozen different premises. Of these, one can be located only generally, and two are open to question. Such mention as is found of Franklin's various living quarters is scattered. Nevertheless, it is possible to resurrect 127 128 HANNAH BENNER ROACH April from oblivion those which can be located definitely, and to suggest the possible locations of the others. Not included among the twelve, as neither should be termed a "home" in the domestic sense, are the great Quaker Meeting House at the southwest corner of Second and Market streets which Franklin himself credits as "the first house I was in or slept in, in Philadelphia," or the Crooked Billet Tavern, where he "slept soundly" his first night in town "till next morning."1 The Crooked Billet Tavern was located on the site of the present 35 South Front Street, not quite one hundred and fifty feet north of Chestnut Street, and had a frontage of twenty-four feet on both Front and Water streets. Since the tavern had been accommodating strangers as early as 1690, it was reputed to be one of the oldest taverns in town, but like the public stairs along its south wall, the building had seen better days. Currently, the inn was being kept by George Forrington.2 Just across the rude cartway of Water Street opposite the tavern were frame buildings housing shops on the "key" or wharf which extended out into the Delaware.3 Frank- lin's sound sleep, that first night in Philadelphia, was apparently undisturbed by the soft lapping of water against the wharf's pilings, or by the creaking of cables as the small vessels moored along the wharf swung on their lines. By Franklin's second night in Philadelphia, he was established in his first quarters in the city. That morning he had made himself as tidy as he could, and had then walked up to Second Street to

1 The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin & Selections from His Other Writings (Modern Library Edition, 1950), 31, hereinafter cited as Autobiography. The writer is greatly indebted to Leonard W. Labaree, editor of The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, for the helpful criticisms and comments tendered her in the editing of this paper. 2 Philadelphia Exemplification Book I, 207: May 3, 1692, Patent to Alice Guest, recorded in Patent Book A-i, 301, Land Office, Department of Internal Affairs, Harrisburg. Hereinafter, all exemplification records, wills, and deeds are Philadelphia records, on file in Department of Records, Philadelphia City Hall. In Deed Book F-2, 94: Dec. 11, 1719, George Guest to Anthony Morris, Jr., the tavern is specifically stated as being located between Front and King (later Water) sts. In the American Weekly Mercury', Dec. 2, 1725, George Forrington, inn- keeper at the Crooked Billet, notified the public that he was to leave the province in about two months' time. 3 Only two years before, the Grand Jury had presented the stairs as being much out of repair and dangerous. For a more extended description of this property, see Robert C. Moon, M.D., The Morris Family of Philadelphia: Descendants of Anthony Morris, 1654-1721 (Phila- delphia, 1898), I, 135-138. i960 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SLEPT HERE 129 the Sign of the Bible. There he had applied for a job to Andrew Bradford, printer of Philadelphia's first and, so far, only newssheet, the ^American Weekly ^Mercury. Bradford had no opening, but had suggested that Franklin apply to Samuel Keimer, another printer "lately set up" in town. If Franklin should have no luck there, Bradford had told the lad he might lodge with him if he wanted to; perhaps Bradford could find a little work for him to do "till further business should offer."4 Keimer's shop was still farther up town on the south side of Market Street between Third and Fourth. There Franklin had found that Keimer had just acquired "an old shattered press, and one small, worn-out font of English" type, and at the moment of Franklin's arrival, was setting up some verses "directly out of his head" into type. Since there was but a single pair of cases to work with, Keimer had put his composing stick into Franklin's hand to see how the lad worked, and had continued to deliver his lines of verse to be set up as he composed them. Satisfied on the score of his ability, Keimer had then agreed to employ Franklin in a few days' time, once his verses were ready for printing, and allowed the lad to put the press, which Franklin remembered had not been used as yet, "into order fit to be work'd with." After that, and as Keimer's house was "without furniture" —the printer lodged next door with his landlord—Franklin had returned to the Sign of the Bible where Bradford gave him "a little job to do for the present." Here Franklin "lodged and dieted" in his first quarters in Philadelphia.5 Bradford had been operating as a printer in Philadelphia for almost ten years. During that time he had been printing for the Philadelphia Friends' Meeting, renting from them the old printing press which they had purchased in England in 1698. Bradford also appears to have rented from the Meeting accommodations for himself and his wife Dorcas—they had no children—and for the shop he maintained in conjunction with his printing establishment. Since his sign hung out over Second Street, these quarters were presumably somewhere on the forty-five-foot lot, located eighty feet south of the southwest corner of Second and Market streets, 4 Autobiography, 31. * Ibid., 31. I3O HANNAH BENNER ROACH April which extended west one hundred and thirty-two feet to Strawberry- Alley. The lot now includes the premises numbered 12, 14, 16 and 18 South Second Street.6 Between the lot and Market Street stood the Friends' Meeting House where Franklin had napped the previous day. South of it, in the northwest corner of the forty-five-foot lot, was the Friends' schoolhouse; it had a frontage of twenty-five feet on Strawberry Alley and extended east sixty feet toward Second Street.7 Possibly it was in the east end of this building that the Bradfords lived; certainly, it seems to have been in this building that the printing press was set up. The only other building known to have been erected by 1723 on the forty-five-foot lot was the original messuage, built between 1693 and 1695. It was directly east of the schoolhouse on the site of the present 12 and 14 South Second Street. This messuage, however, was rented by Friends in 1723 to Evan Owen and Thomas Cannon, both members of the Meeting.8 Perhaps one of them sublet to Bradford a front room in which he kept shop. An extended study of the titles to the entire lot has failed to reveal, however, the precise location in 1723 of the Sign of the Bible. Wherever it was, Franklin's stay there was brief. "A few days after" he had settled at the Bradfords, Keimer sent for Franklin to print his now completed verses, "having got another pair of

6 For title to this tract, see Block 1-S-2, lots 50 and 59 fronting on Strawberry Alley, and lots 19, 195 and 198 fronting on Second St., in Registry Division, Philadelphia Department of Records, hereinafter referred to as Registry Division. Unfortunately, pertinent deeds referring to the early colonial period are scant. Anna Janney DeArmond's study, Andrew Bradford, Colonial Journalist (Newark, Del., 1949), contributes little definite information on Bradford's various locations—of which there were four—in Philadelphia. A certain amount of information on the Friends' schoolhouse may be gleaned from Thomas Woody's Early Quaker Education in Pennsylvania (New York, 1920). His data was drawn from the early minutes of the Philadel- phia Monthly Meeting, transcripts of which, as well as items in the Logan Papers, XVII, XVIII, in The Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP), have all been examined. 7 Philadelphia Monthly Meeting Minutes, I, 298, entry for 27 4m 1701, in the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania (GSP). The ground on which the schoolhouse was originally built was part of the larger lot William Markham had sold to Friends in 1695 for a new meetinghouse. See Exemplification Book I, 618: Sept. 3, 1705, Patent to Edward Shippen, recorded in Patent Book A-3, 146. 8 Philadelphia Monthly Meeting Minutes, II, 443, entry for 27 3m 1720, and Deed Book D-42, 32: June 19, 1725, John Goodson et at. to Overseers of the Public Schools, memo at- tached, wherein Evan Owen and Thomas Cannon are stated to be the "attorned" tenants of the premises conveyed. i960 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SLEPT HERE I3I cases, and a pamphlet to reprint/'9 Not unnaturally, the printer took a jdim view of his employee lodging with his competitor. He therefore arranged with his own landlord, the carpenter John Read, who lived next door, to take Franklin as a second lodger. Read's little house, sixteen and a half feet wide, stood on a lot which extended south three hundred and six feet to the back end of Chestnut Street lots. Keimer's shop, also sixteen and a half feet in width, stood on a similar lot adjoining. The easternmost of these two lots, which totaled thirty-three feet over-all, Read had pur- chased for £15 from one Henry Hayes of "Malbry" in Chester County in May, 1711. The western lot Read had bought from Hayes in December, 1716. Neither lot at the time of purchase had been built upon. Read erected a house on the eastern lot first, and, after 1716 probably, a second dwelling on the west lot.10 Both buildings occupied the site of the present 318 Market Street, but which was the Read home at the time of Franklin's occupancy as a lodger remains unresolved. An insurance survey made in 1752 survives for the westernmost house only; the adjoining dwelling was probably similar in details of construction and layout. Both houses were undoubtedly two stories high, "brick front and back." The west wall of the western- most house was of nine-inch brick up to the garret floor. From there the gable was of wood, probably boarded or shingled. The party wall on the east was also of wood. As the one house was thirty-seven and a half feet deep, the other would have been of similar depth, each having two rooms on a floor. An enclosed or "boarded newel stairs" wound from the first floor to the garret, and would have been located at one side of the chimney breast, possibly in the rear room. A "sleepy" dormer—one not gabled, but having a sloping roof— very likely provided light for the garret on the front of the house; perhaps a similar one was located on the rear of the roof. Back of each house was a one-story wooden kitchen, roughly nine feet wide and sixteen feet deep.11 9 Autobiography, 33. 10 Franklin Papers, MCi3a, MCi4a, American Philosophical Society (APS). These deeds are not recorded in Philadelphia. n Loose Surveys, The Philadelphia Contributionship for Insuring Houses from Loss by Fire, policies 19, 20, microfilm roll #2, HSP. The writer wishes to express her appreciation to the personnel of the History Division, Independence National Historical Park, Philadelphia, for their courtesy in allowing her to use their index of these surveys. 132 HANNAH BENNER ROACH April In May, 1723, shortly after the General Loan Office first opened its doors, John Read mortgaged one of the two houses to that; agency. The following February he mortgaged the other also.12 Read died less than a year later and before he had satisfied either mortgage. Letters testamentary were granted to his widow Sarah on September 4, 1724, scarcely more than a month after he had executed his will.13 By its terms both houses were devised in trust to Sarah for her life; after her decease the west house and lot was to go to his son John Read, and the eastern one to his two daughters Deborah and Frances. Five years later, the trustees of the Loan Office entered suit in Common Pleas Court for the recovery of the monies due on the still unsatisfied mortgages. The properties were seized by the sheriff, Charles Read, and put up for sale. On September 3, 1729, John Read's widow Sarah bought them at the sale for £354-14 A year later, Franklin took to wife the widow's daughter Deborah, but it was not until April 10, 1734, that Mrs. Read settled on her daughter any known tangible estate. On that date, "for and in consideration of the natural love and affection which she hath and beareth unto the said Deborah and for her better preferment and advancement in the world," plus five shillings consideration money, she made over to "Benjamin Franklin, printer and Deborah his wife, a daughter of said Sarah Read," a half-interest in the eastern- most messuage and lot on the south side of Market Street.15 On the same date, she made over to her other daughter Frances and her husband, the tailor John Croker, the other half-interest in the same messuage and lot. In addition, she conveyed to her son John Read, a carpenter like his father, the entire westernmost house with its similar lot.16 The following day, the Franklins and the Crokers executed a ninety-nine-year lease to the Widow Read. Therein they did "grant, farm and lett" to her the east house, subject to the "rent of one Pepper corn only if demanded." She was also to "Repair, Uphold, Support, Maintain and . . . Keep the said Messuage" at

12 Mrs. William M. Mervine, "Abstracts of the General Loan Office Mortgages," Publica- tions of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, VI, 269, 283, hereinafter cited as PGSP. 13 Will Book D, 398, #317: 1724. 14 Deed Book H-7, 431: Sept. 3, 1729, Charles Read to Sarah Read. 15 Deed Book H-7, 433: Apr. 10, 1734, Sarah Read to Benjamin Franklin. 16 Deed Book H-7, 435: Apr. 10, 1734, Sarah Read to John Croker, and 439: Apr. 10, 1734, Sarah Read to John Read. i960 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SLEPT HERE I33 her own "proper costs and charges/' accidents by fire excepted. For their part, the grantors reserved the right "to build or make improvements on any part of the said Lott of Land, and to have, retrieve, possess and enjoy such Buildings and Improvements so by them ... to be made ... or built," as well as any rents or profits arising therefrom.17 Eleven years later, on October 12, 1745, John Croker, then of Staten Island, Richmond County, New York, and his second wife Elizabeth made over to Franklin for sixty pounds proclamation money their half-interest in the house.18 Franklin's brother-in-law John Read eventually moved to the new town of York in the central part of the province. At an un- specified time, probably in April, 1734, he had granted to his mother the use of the westernmost premises during her life. The reversion of the property, effective after her death, he conveyed on November 15, 1751, to Franklin.19 Franklin thus eventually became seized of the entire thirty-three-foot lot, in the rear of which he would build his final home. So far as is known, Franklin and his family never lived in either of these two houses after he acquired title to them. They were income-producing properties, which undoubtedly had a long line of tenants. Franklin was, however, a lodger in one of them for approximately the first six months of his residence in Philadelphia. Then, in the spring of 1724, he made a short trip to Boston in a search for capital with which to set himself up in business—this at the age of eighteen years—under the sponsorship of the lieutenant governor, Sir William Keith. When the search proved fruitless, Franklin returned to Phila- delphia, bringing with him his boyhood friend John Collins. It seems probable that this time Franklin lodged with Keimer, who by now had acquired furniture, rather than with the Reads. Collins also lived at Keimer's when he was unable to find satisfactory employment, for according to Franklin, Collins lodged and boarded "at the same house with me, and at my expense/'20 Later, after

17 Apr. ii, 1734, Benjamin Franklin et al. to Sarah Read, Society Miscellaneous Collec- tion, HSP. 18 Deed Book H-7, 437: Oct. 12, 1745, John Croker to Benjamin Franklin. 19 Deed Book H-7, 440: Nov. 15, 1751, John Read to Benjamin Franklin. 20 Autobiography, 39. 134 HANNAH BENNER ROACH April Collins had left town, Franklin recalled that he and Keimer "liv'd on a pretty good familiar footing, and agreed tolerably well. . . . We had our victuals dress'd, and brought to us regularly by a woman in the neighborhood. . . ,"21 Keimer's dwelling, next door to the Reads, would thus have been Franklin's third quarters in Philadelphia. The arrangement was not of long duration, however. In the fall of that year, 1724, Franklin went to London, still hoping for Gov- ernor Keith's assistance in obtaining equipment for a printing house of his own. When this hope proved futile, he worked for a time in several of the large printing establishments there, obtaining valuable experience. Eventually tiring of this, he engaged himself to the merchant Thomas Denham in order to learn the mercantile business. Denham was a Quaker who had come from Bristol to Philadelphia in 1716. He had gone back to England in the late summer of 1721, and on his return to Philadelphia had occupied premises in Second Street "near the Meeting House" and Bradford's shop. There he sold choice Madeira wine, "neat and well flavor'd," either wholesale or retail, and disposed of a cargo of Palatine immigrants newly arrived at Elk River to "his good country Friends" at the rate of £5 each.22 When Denham went to England in 1724, Franklin was his ship- mate. Their acquaintance ripened into friendship; by the time London had lost its fascination for Franklin, Denham proposed teaching the young man, now twenty years old, to keep books, copy letters, and tend store at a salary of £50 Pennsylvania currency. Once these had been mastered, he promised to establish Franklin "handsomely." Taking passage on board the Berkshire, the two arrived in Phila- delphia in October, 1726. Back on shore, Franklin recalled that "Mr. Denham took a store in Water-street, where we open'd our goods." Franklin applied himself diligently to the mercantile business where he said he "grew, in a little time, expert at selling. We lodg'd and boarded together."23 21 ibid., 42. 22 "Early Minutes of Philadelphia Monthly Meeting of Friends," PGSP, VII, 254; Albert Cook Myers, Quaker Arrivals at Philadelphia 1682-1750 (Baltimore, Md., 1957), 76; American Weekly Mercury, July 12 and Dec. 18, 1722* 23 Autobiography, 59. i960 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SLEPT HERE 135 This store, where they also probably lodged, Denham rented from Isaac Norris for £20 a year.24 It was the second house south of the Crooked Billet, occupying the site of the present 39 South Front Street. As described in 1753, it had a frontage of twenty feet, extended east to Water Street about forty-five feet, and was at that time three stories high "above Front Street." Eight years later, when it had passed into the ownership of John Ord, there was "a store in front part belo with shelves and counters." This was presumably the shop Denham rented and in which Franklin learned the clerking business.25 As with the Keimer quarters, this fourth Philadelphia residence of Franklin's was of short duration. According to his recollection, in February, 1726/7, both he and Denham became seriously ill. Franklin "suffer'd a good deal" with a pleurisy, even thought he would die, but eventually recovered. Denham's illness "held him a long time, and at length carried him off." Franklin was left "once more to the wide world; for the store was taken into the care of his executors," and Franklin's "employment under him ended."26 Exactly when this parting of the ways occurred remains uncertain. Franklin implies it was not until after Denham's death, but that did not occur until July 4, 1728,27 by which time Franklin was in partnership with Hugh Meredith. In Denham's surviving account book the only credit entry for wages paid to Franklin is the one 24 Thomas Denham Account Book, 31, HSP. The entry was under date of Dec. 29, 1726, but in the handwriting of one of Denham's executors. See also Isaac Norris Ledger A, 133, HSP, wherein Thomas Denham's account "for 2 years rent of house in Front, £40," is entered, 25 For title to this lot, see Block i-S-i, lot 4, Registry Division. Norris purchased the house and lot in 1713 from Nicholas Wansford for £150 In Deed Book H-13, 136: Aug. 8, 1760, William Henderson to John Ord, it is recited that Isaac Norris and James Steward had con- veyed to William Henderson on Sept. 19, 1759. Steward's interest in the property is not ex- plained, but it was he who had the property surveyed on Jan. 9,1753, and insured by the Con- tributionship under policy 288. Microfilm roll #3, HSP. By the time Ord had it resurveyed in 1762, it would appear the place had been somewhat modernized, for the staircase was bracketed, there were marble slab mantels and jambs, and fluted pilasters in the "Back parler."

26 Autobiographyy 59. 27 William Wade Hinshaw, Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1938), II, 353. Denham's will was written Mar. 15, 1727/8, and proved July 29, 1728. The executors were Richard Martin and Clement Plumsted. Legacies of £10 each were left to former servants, John Baker and Abraham Strong, but no mention whatever was made of Franklin. Obviously, it was not a nuncupative will, as Franklin recalled. Will Book E, 84, #91:1728. I36 HANNAH BENNER ROACH April "For Profit and Loss for 10 Week's Service £6.0.0," which was paid Franklin the day before Christmas, 1726. This was not quite eleven weeks after their arrival in Philadelphia. During those weeks Denham had advanced to Franklin, either in cash or "sundries," a total of £6 3^. 5^/.,28 a sum equivalent to a little more than another ten weeks' salary, thus bringing his time of employment up to about the beginning of March, 1726/7. Franklin, however, was still debtor to Denham for the £10 passage money which Denham had paid to Captain John Crain on December 29, 1726.29 There is no direct evidence showing that this debt was ever worked off. In fact, a subsequent entry in the account book under Franklin's name, made September 1, 1729, by Denham's executors, states that the passage money "was forgiven by Thomas Denham" on the "evidence of Richard Armitt et uxor, and Eliz. Hill." Furthermore, on May 1, 1727, a new clerk, Edward West, was paid by Denham £3 15J. 4^. for "1 m[onth] 1 w[eek] Writing my Books."30 West's tenure obviously had begun the last week in March. No further entry under West's name was made until April, 1728, nearly a year later. Then two were made by Denham, one for "6 mos Writing my Books from the 1 Oct 1727 to the 1 Apr 1728 @ 5 per mo £30.0.0," and the other for £18 4^. for "my Board and for Attendance from 1 8br 1727 to the 1 Apr 1728 is 26 weeks at 14 s."31 On the basis of these entries it is suggested, therefore, that Franklin was sick, not in February, 1726/7, as he remembered it more than forty years later, but during March and April of that year. While he lay abed, and after Denham himself became ill, West took over the duties of the store. When Franklin recovered sufficiently, West was laid off, not to be recalled until the following October. What, then, was Franklin doing between May and October? Did he actually work off his passage money, a circumstance Denham, his health steadily declining, simply forgot to enter? Was the evidence of the tailor Richard Armitt and his wife, who lived in Front Street just south of Chestnut Street at the corner of Anthony

28 Thomas Denham Account Book, 20, HSP.

29 Bid.y 36. 30 Ibid., 32. 31 Ibid., 80. i960 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SLEPT HERE I37 Morris' alley,32 to the effect that they knew Franklin had continued in Denham's employ, having often seen him in the shop during the late spring and summer of 1727, and had understood from Denham himself that the young man was staying until his passage money had been worked off? If so, Franklin would have remained with Denham until some time in August. However it was, when Franklin realized Denham was not going to recover, he "tri'd for farther employment as a merchant's clerk; but not readily meeting with any/' he returned to his original occupation of printing. Tempted "with an offer of large wages by the year, to come and take the management of his printing-house," Franklin certainly by October had "clos'd again with Keimer." The printer had moved from the Read house in Market Street to "a better house, a shop well supply'd with stationery, plenty of new types, a number of hands, tho' none good," Franklin wrote, "and seem'd to have a great deal of business."33 During that fall and the winter of 1727-1728 Franklin spent his days once more putting Keimer's "printing-house in order, which had been in great confusion, and brought his hands by degrees to mind their business and to do it better."34 In the evenings he spent his time gathering about him a number of his "ingenious acquaint- ances into a club of mutual improvement."35 This they called the Junto, out of which would grow the American Philosophical Society. At first there were only ten members besides Franklin, three of whom were his coworkers at Keimer's shop, Hugh Meredith and George Webb, apprenticed to the printer, and the bookbinder Stephen Potts. Among the other Junto members was William Maugridge, a young ship joiner and a former customer of Thomas Denham's, who possibly was Franklin's fifth landlord in Philadelphia. Tradition would like to have it that at some time in his youth Franklin lived in Elfreth's Alley above Arch Street between Front 32 "Abstracts of the General Loan Office Mortgages," PGSP> VI, 277. For biographical data on the Armitts, see J. Granville Leach, "The Record of Some Residents in the Vicinity of Middle Ferry, Philadelphia, During the Latter Half of the Eighteenth Century," ibid.y IX, 45. Elizabeth Hill has not been identified. She appears in the Women's Minutes of Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, however, and possibly lived with the Armitts. 33 Autobiography, 59. 34 Ibid^ 60. Keimer's shop and printing house have not been located. They were in Second St., but whether north or south of Market has not been established beyond doubt. 35 Ibid., 67. I38 HANNAH BENNER ROACH April and Second. No substantiation for this tradition has been found to date. But if Franklin ever did live there, this period from the fall of 1727 to the early summer of 1728 is the only time he could have been there, for he was not living with Keimer, as the other employees did, but had lodgings elsewhere.36 At that time there were only four houses erected on the alley, then known as Gilbert's or Preston's Alley. On the north side, about in the middle of the block on the site of the present numbers 125 and 127, the sawyer Alexander Lindsay lived.37 A little to the west of him, where number 133 formerly stood, an unidentified tenant presumably occupied the house owned by Thomas Roberts of Bristol Township.38 Across the alley on the south side, the only houses then standing were the present dwellings numbered 120 and 122. In the first house either the owner Andrew Edge or his tenant lived.39 In the second, by April, 1728, William Maugridge, described by Franklin as "a most exquisite mechanic, and a solid, sensible man," was living with his wife Ann as tenants of the Jersey tanner Thomas Potts.40 Whether Maugridge had lived in one of the other houses on the alley prior to his known occupancy of number 122 is unknown. But certainly there would have been nothing unusual in Franklin's lodging with him in view of their mutual interest in the Junto. However, without substantial documentation, Franklin's fifth place of abode remains undetermined. By the time Franklin had been with Keimer six months, he realized that the printer "kept his shop miserably, sold often without

36 When Franklin, at the end of his second quarter with Keimer, temporarily left the printer's employ because of an argument with him, Franklin asked Hugh Meredith to "take care of some things I left, and bring them to my lodgings." Ibid., 62. 37 Deed Book D-5, 498: Oct. 12, 1727, William Carter to Alexander Lindsay. 38 Deed Book AM-75, 50: July 10, 1723, Matthias Birchfield to Thomas Roberts. 39 Deed Book D-77, 274: Aug. 14, 1728, Thomas Potts to Andrew Edge. This is a curious deed, indicating that Thomas Potts, Sr., grandfather of the grantor, and Andrew Edge either inadvertently built their houses on each other's lots, or that the scrivener—presumably Charles Brockden, who witnessed the deeds—or his clerk erred in writing the two instruments. 40 Thomas Potts Ledger, New Jersey Historical Society. The Maugridge rent receipts, headed "Wm Mogridge Tenant in my house in Philada Dr," extend from June 29,1728, through Mar. 25,1731. The first entry for a quarter's rent was for the previous three months' tenancy. Pertinent extracts from this ledger relating to Elfreth's Alley were abstracted for the writer by Mrs. R. Hartshorne, East Orange, N. J., at the suggestion of her daughter Miss Penelope Hartshorne, Independence National Historical Park. i960 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SLEPT HERE I39 profit for ready money, and often trusted without keeping accounts; that he must therefore fail, which would make a vacancy I might profit of."41 He and Hugh Meredith, whose time with Keimer would be up in the spring of 1728, decided to go into business together. Financed by Hugh's father Simon, they ordered types and a press from London. In the late winter, while they were waiting for these to arrive, Franklin went with Keimer to Burlington where they "continued . . . near three months" printing paper money for New Jersey.42 They had "not been long returned to Philadelphia before the new types arriv'd from London." Hugh's time with Keimer having now expired, both young men "left him by his consent." They promptly "found a house to hire near the Market, and took it."43 In 1717, Simon Edgell, a Quaker pewterer, had purchased from Richard Hill a small house and lot on the north side of Market Street a few doors below Second Street.44 On the site of the present 139 Market Street, the premises occupied a lot nineteen feet wide by thirty-nine feet deep. In 1759, when it was surveyed for insurance purposes, the house was described as of brick, three stories high, fourteen-feet across the front and twenty-two and a half feet deep; the east wall was built of nine-inch brick and the west of four-inch brick. Board newel stairs and board partitions were the only interior features listed. A kitchen building, ten by twelve feet, also three stories high and having nine-inch brick walls, extended back of the front building along the west property line. Resurveyed in 1773, the dimensions of the house were slightly different: the front building was then said to be fourteen and a half by twenty-two feet in size,

41 Autobiographyy 61-63. 42 Ibid., 64. See also Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives of the Province of Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, 1931-1935), HI, 1890, hereinafter cited as Votes. Keimer stated before the Assembly on May 17, 1728, "that being at Burlington about printing the Jersey Paper Money, he received a letter from Edward Home, desiring him to print a certain Paper; and when he came down to Philadelphia this week. . . ." Keimer's statement, placed in context with that of Franklin's cited in the text, indicates that Franklin's stay in Burlington extended perhaps from the middle or end of February to sometime in May. 43 Autobiography, 66. 44 Deed Book F-i, 162: Dec. 31,1717, Richard Hill to Simon Edgell. John Soames of Boston originally had purchased this lot and that adjoining on the east from Samuel Richardson. Soames's only surviving son Benjamin conveyed the premises to Hill, 31 10m 1715. For title to the western one of the two lots, see Block 1-N-2, lot 135, Registry Division. I4O HANNAH BENNER ROACH April the kitchen twelve by nine. A still later survey made in 1789 stated there were two rooms on a floor in the front part, the back one being the smaller of the two. The kitchen by then had been increased to seventeen feet in depth.45 To help pay the rent of £24 which Franklin recalled they paid yearly for this place, he and Meredith took in the glazier Thomas Godfrey, another original member of the Junto, and his family "who were to pay a considerable part of it to us, and we to board with them." In addition, Godfrey was to have the use of "one side of the shop for his glazier's business/'46 It was here in Simon Edgell's house that Franklin wrote the first of the Busy-Body letters which were printed in the late winter of 1728-1729 in Bradford's ^American Weekly ^Mercury. Here, too, originated the first known issue of their press, QA ^Modest Enquiry into the ^Nature and Necessity of a 'Paper Currency, which appeared in April, 1729.47 Six months later their most ambitious undertaking was begun. Having purchased "for a trifle" Keimer's rights in the newspaper he had started only the previous winter under the ponderous title The Universal Instructor in aAll Pennsylvania gazette. "It prov'd in a few years extremely profitable to me," Franklin modestly stated.48 Then, on January 30, 1729/30, they were appointed official printers of the proceedings of the Assembly,49 and Franklin's first connection with Pennsylvania politics began. By this time, Franklin had to admit that Meredith was "no compositor, a poor pressman and seldom sober."50 Moreover, they were being sued for the balance owing for their press and type since

45 Loose Surveys, Contributionship, microfilm roll #8, HSP. Surveyed on Oct. 2, 1759, policy 565, covering this property, was issued to Richard Morris. He had purchased the house and lot on July 25, 1759, from John Coxe, surgeon, who had married Sarah Edgell on June 10, 1756, in Christ Church. She was the widow of Simon's only surviving son William. Simon's daughter married Samuel Mifflin after the death of her mother Rebecca Edgell in 1750. Deed Book D-2, 59: John Coxe to Richard Morris. 46 Autobiography, 76. 47 Albert Henry Smyth, ed., The Writings of Benjamin Franklin (New York, 1907), II, 100, 133, hereinafter cited as Writings, 48 Autobiography, 71. 49 Votes, III, 1992. 50 Autobiography, 71. i960 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SLEPT HERE I4I the elder Meredith was unable to advance them further funds. Hugh, realizing he was a liability to the firm, proposed ending the partnership if Franklin would assume all their debts and advance Meredith enough money to leave the province. To this Franklin agreed, and the partnership was ended by April, 1730, to all intents and purposes, although a formal relinquishment by Meredith was not executed until the following July 14.51 Shortly after Meredith's departure, the Godfreys also left the Edgell house when Franklin declined Mrs. Godfrey's efforts at matchmaking. "We differ'd," Franklin remembered, "and they removed, leaving me the whole house, and I resolved to take no more inmates."52 He now resumed his friendship with his first landlord's daughter Deborah, who had married the potter John Rogers in Christ Church on August 5, 1725, while Franklin was in London. When she learned that the potter was already married, she had returned to her parents' home; Rogers had absconded to the West Indies in December, 1727, leaving behind him numerous debts. Because of the uncertainty of Rogers' present whereabouts or possible death, "great objections" were raised by the Widow Read to Franklin's proposed union with her daughter. Nevertheless, in what must have been somewhat of a whirlwind courtship for those days, Franklin "took her to wife, September 1st 1730,"53 and installed her in his sixth domicile, Simon Edgell's house in Market Street. In July, 1731, less than a year after their marriage, Franklin's mother-in-law, the widow Sarah Read, came to live with them, removing "from the upper End of High-street to the New Printing- Office near the Market." She arranged to rent the shop "one side," hitherto used by the Godfreys, from Franklin for £6 a year. Here she sold her "well known Ointment for the Itch" as well as her "excellent Family Salve or Ointment for Burns or Scalds, is. an Ounce," and "Lockyer's Pills at 3d. a Pill."54 The arrangement

61 George Simpson Eddy, Account Books Kept by Benjamin Franklin (New York, 1929), I, 10, 14. Thomas Whitemarsh, who entered Franklin's employ after Meredith quit, had been engaged by April, 1730, as per entry under date of Aug. 25, 1730. The entries quoted by Eddy are to be found in Franklin's Ledger A, begun July 4, 1730, APS. 52 Autobiography, 77. 53 American Weekly Mercury, May 9, 1728; Autobiography, 78. 54 Pennsylvania Gazette, Sept. 23 and Oct. 21,1731. See also the entry under date of July 5, 1731, in Franklin's Ledger A, 17, APS, where he noted the rent was "to begin the 2d inst." I42 HANNAH BENNER ROACH April seems to have been of short duration, however, for by November the bookbinder Stephen Potts had agreed to rent the shop.55 Since the house had been built prior to 1717, it is not surprising that occasional repairs were necessary. During 1733, Franklin entered in his Ledger A against Simon Edgell's name repairs "of the Necessary House £0.10.0," repairs of "the Flat £0.4.6," and repairs of the stairs for which no amount was enumerated. Three years later on November 16, 1736, Edgell was charged £3 12s. id. for nearly a dozen minor repairs: making a spout, a dresser in the kitchen, mending the yard gate (an alley extended north from Market Street along the east property line to the back yard), mending the floor, the kitchen window frame, and the chamber floor, fitting up the shop, the step in "the little house," repairing the shop and the back door. Then on May 12, 1738, there was a final charge for mending the plaster, laying the hearth, and un- enumerated items which came to a total of 13s. 6^/.56 It was in the Edgell house that William Franklin first made his appearance as the printer's acknowledged son, and that Francis Folger Franklin was born in October, 1732, only to die four years later of smallpox. Early in 1733, not long after Francis' birth, Stephen Potts moved into the garret of the house, paying the Franklins thirty shillings a year room rent. Then in 1737, the year after Potts was appointed doorkeeper of the Assembly, Edward Lewis moved in, Franklin having hired him for "£9 a year and his accommodations of meat, drink, washing and lodging."57 By that time, Franklin had taken under his roof his dead brother's young son Jemmy, and was sending him to school with the intention of eventually taking him on as an apprentice.58 And long before the Widow Read moved out to a house up the street opposite her former home,59 the shop she vacated was already filled with such items as "Bibles, Testaments, Psalters, Psalm Books, Accompt-Books, Bills 55 Ibid., 24, under date of Jan. 7,1731/2: "Adjusted Accounts with Stephen Potts, the shop rent reckoned to beginning of November last, and his Diet to the 2i8t of December last; and he is debtor to Balance £8.8.9^." 56^,1,50,51. 57 Ledger A, 30, 73, APS; Votes, III, 2374-2701. Potts became doorkeeper the same year Franklin was appointed clerk of the Assembly. 58 Carl Van Doren, Benjamin Franklin (New York, 1957), 121. 59 Sarah Read Receipt Book, APS, under date of 24 nm 1735, wherein Richard Warder acknowledged receiving 40s. for a half year's rent due on that day; also under date of 5 3m 1736, for iSs. iiy&d. received by him from Frances Croker "in full for rent and all accounts." i960 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SLEPT HERE I43 of Lading bound and unbound, Common Blank Bonds for Money, Bonds with Judgment, Counterbonds, Arbitration Bonds, Arbitra- tion Bonds with Umpirage, Bail Bonds, Counterbonds to save Bail harmless, Bills of Sale, Powers of Attorney, Writs, Summons, Apprentices Indentures, Servants Indentures, Penal Bills, Prom- isory Notes &c, all the Blanks in the most authentick Forms, and correctly Printed. . . ."60 Unquestionably, the old house hummed with activity during these early years, a silent witness to the rapidly widening scope of Franklin's interests and undertakings. Here it was he proudly displayed to Debby the Masonic habili- ments he acquired upon his initiation early in 1731 into St. John's Lodge of the Freemasons, habiliments replaced by grander ones in 1734 when he was elected Grand Master of Pennsylvania.61 Here he began to teach himself languages, and in the spring of 1732 hopefully launched the first German-American newspaper to be printed in America, the Thiladelphische-Zeitung. When this venture proved no sailor at all, late in the same year he issued the first "Poor Richard's destined to be a best seller for a quarter of a century. "Having become easy" in his circumstances with Poor Richard's help, Franklin made a journey to New England late in the fall of 1733 to visit his relatives, a trip he "could not sooner well afford."62 During the next few years he began buying up rags "for Ready money" to sell to the country papermakers William Dewees and Thomas Willcox,63 who made paper from them for his press. In October, 1736, he was appointed clerk of the Assembly, thereby assuring the continuance of his printing contract with the govern- ment.64 Another of his projects culminated, before that year was out, in the formation of "a company for the ready extinguishing of fires, and mutual assistance in removing and securing goods when in danger."65 This, the Union Fire Company, was formally organized on December 7, 1736. Less than a year later, when he had been appointed postmaster for Philadelphia, he announced in the

60 Pennsylvania Gazette, Oct. 27, 1729. 61 Julius F. Sachse, "The Masonic Chronology of Benjamin Franklin," The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (PMHB), XXX (1906), 238. 62 Autobiography, 113. 63 Eddy, 30-31. 64 Votes, III, 2373. 65 Autobiography, 117; Van Doren, 130. 144 HANNAH BENNER ROACH April Qazette for October 17, 1737, that "the Post-Office of Philadelphia is now kept at B. Franklin's in Market-street." By the time he had been in the Edgell house less than ten years, Franklin had succeeded in establishing for himself a going concern, had a wide acquaintance among both merchants and tradesmen in town and the surrounding colonies, and apparently felt that it was time to provide a more comfortable setting for his activities. Finding himself "incorrigible with respect to Order," particularly "with regard to places for things, papers, etc,"66 he must have hoped that in a larger place he would have sufficient room to separate his varied activities and so provide "a place for everything and every- thing in its place." When Franklin had bought out Meredith, his two good friends William Coleman, then a merchant's clerk "who had the coolest, clearest head, the best heart and the exactest morals of almost any man" Franklin had ever met with, and Robert Grace, "a young gentleman of some fortune, generous, lively and witty," had ad- vanced the young printer the money necessary to reimburse Meredith's father and pay off the firm's debts. Both young men were original members of the Junto. Grace held a life tenancy in the house his grandmother Constance and her husband Hugh Lowden had lived in prior to their deaths in 1726 and 1723.67 This property was just four doors down toward the river from the Edgell house. The lot on which it stood was seventeen feet wide, extended north one hundred and two feet to a point where it widened to thirty-four feet, then continued that width north to Pewter Platter Alley. On the portion fronting the alley was at least one small building, two and a half stories high, where the Junto members by 1733 were meeting on Friday evenings for their "mutual improvement." Here also were kept the books of the Library Company, the "first project of a public nature" Franklin had set on foot back in 1731.68

66 Autobiography, ioo. 67 For will of Hugh Lowden, see Will Book D, 3$$, #276: 1723; for will of Constance Lowden, see Will Book D, 455, §363: 1726. 68 John F. Watson, Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania in the Olden Time (Philadel- phia, 1927), I, 462; Charles E. Peterson, "Library Hall: Home of the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1790-1880," American Philosophical Society Library Bulletin (1951), 266 (note); Autobiography, 79. i960 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SLEPT HERE I45 The alley itself had been opened as early as 1693 by Griffith Jones, a First Purchaser and onetime mayor of Philadelphia. From time to time, he had sold off lots on both sides of the alley, reserving to himself and his heirs a ground rent on each lot. In 1705 he sold to the innkeeper Herbert Corrie that part of the land on the alley directly north of the later Grace property. Corrie presumably erected the two-and-a-half-story building on the lot, now 120 Church Alley, and sold the premises in 1709 to Hugh Lowden for £50, subject to the ground rent payable to Griffith Jones.69 It was at this house, no doubt, "where the Library is kept, in the Alley next the Bears-Head Tavern," that Louis Timothee, "master of the French tongue," announced in the spring of 1733 that subscribers to the Library Company were to meet to choose directors and a treasurer.70 Another lot, now 122 Church Alley, was sold by Jones to John Davids about the time of the sale to Corrie. Lowden eventually became its owner, but how or when remains unknown, the deeds recording the transaction having been "lost or destroyed" and never recorded. The Market Street lot, now numbered 131, Herbert Corrie purchased on ground rent from Samuel Richardson in 1693. Corrie appears to have built the three-story house on this lot between that date and 1709 when he sold the property for £100 to Lowden, subject to a ground rent of £3 1 s. 4^., payable to the heirs of Samuel Richardson.71 In 1782 the house was described as seventeen feet across the front by forty-five feet deep, built with eighteen- and nine-inch brick walls. At that time, there were two rooms on a floor "planely finished" and very old, except the front room which by then had been made into a dry goods store. The kitchen, two stories high,

69 Deed Books GWC-45, 61: Apr. 2, 1705, Griffith Jones to Herbert Corrie; E-6-7, 39: Jan. 13, 1709/10, Herbert Corrie to Hugh Lowden. 70 Pennsylvania Gazettey Apr. 26, 1733. On Dec. 21, 1731, while he was living in Front St. next door to Dr. John Kearsley, Louis Timothee had advertised in the paper that he intended to keep "a Publick French School.'* Franklin sent him to South Carolina late in 1733, estab- lished him as a printer there, and continued in partnership with his widow after Timothee's death in 1738. 71 Deed Books E-6-7, 37: Jan. 12, 1709/10, Herbert Corrie to Hugh Lowden; E-6-7, IOJ Mar. 16, 1709/10, Samuel Richardson to Hugh Lowden. I46 HANNAH BENNER ROACH April twenty by eleven feet, stood about fifteen feet back from the house. The buildings fronting on Pewter Platter Alley now included two small houses which were finished 'Very plane." The eastern one, where the Library Company books had been kept, was described as being twenty-two feet wide. This dimension included a five-foot alley which separated it from the western house. The latter was described as being fifteen feet wide, indicating that an additional few feet on the west had been acquired at some prior date.72 Patently, this property, occupying the sites of the present 131 Market Street and 120 and 122 Church Alley, offered Franklin a great deal more room, for it would permit not only the separation of his printing office from his habitation, but would provide more adequate quarters for the post office. So it came about that by January, 1738/9, Franklin had "removed from the House he lately dwelt in, four Doors nearer the River, on the same side of the Street" into Robert Grace's house, and the printing shop was estab- lished in the building on the alley directly north of the main dwelling.73 No receipts have been found to show what rental Franklin paid to Grace prior to 1745 for this, his seventh residence in Philadelphia. Receipts for ground rents, for which Franklin was liable, survive for the Market Street lot and that directly back of it on the alley, but date only from 1744. The rent of forty shillings for the alley lot was paid annually until 1748 to Joseph Warder, heir of Solomon Warder, who had purchased the ground rent from Griffith Jones's son Joseph in 1729.74 After that year, it was paid to Joseph Jones's two daughters Elizabeth Ballard and Ann Ingram, either by Franklin or David Hall, until 1763.75

72 The properties were covered by Contributionship policies 189 and 190, dated Jan. 3,1754, and issued to Robert Grace. The Contributionship Journal entry for the latter place reads "for house in Jones alley, a printing house, £200." As the resurveys, dated Aug. 6, 1782, for Rebecca Grace are the only ones surviving, identification was made from the Journal (1752- 1768), microfilm roll #4, HSP. 73 Pennsylvania Gazette, Jan. 11, 1738/9. For title to the whole property, see Block 1-N-2, lots 172 and 173, Registry Division. References to the location of the printing office on the alley are found in issues of the Gazette for Apr. 30, 1752, Aug. 16, 1753, Oct. 9, 1760, etc. 74 Deed Book F-5, 89: Mar. 17, 1729, Joseph Jones to Solomon Warder. 75 The receipts for the period 1744 to 1755 are to be found in the Franklin Receipt Book, begun Dec. 23, 1743, APS. In the Charles Roberts Autograph Collection, Haverford College Library, scattered receipts from 1755 to 1763 are noted in David Hall's accounts rendered to Franklin in 1764. i960 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SLEPT HERE I47 The ground rent of £3 is. 4^. due on the Market Street lot was paid from 1748 to 1753 to the estate of Benjamin Duffield. One of Duffield's executors, Thomas Whitton, generally gave a receipt for that amount.76 At the end of December, 1745, however, Franklin entered into a new lease with Grace for both this property and that on the alley. The lease was to run for fourteen years, "yielding and paying the sum of £54 on the first of July, the first payment to be the first of July next ensuing/' It was renewed by endorsement on the old lease in March, 1757, for another seven years at an increased rental of £6o.77 It may be presumed, therefore, that the original lease with Grace had been for seven years, from 1738 to 1745, and probably was at a lower rental than the £54 due after 1745. The Franklins were scarcely settled in the new house when they suffered a minor calamity. On February 15, 1739, one William Lloyd, a tall, thin Irishman about thirty years old who "pretends to Latin and Greek/' who perhaps had been employed as tutor to young Billy and Jemmy Franklin, disappeared. With him "out of the House of Benjamin Franklin" went "an half-worn Sagathy Coat lin'd with Silk, four fine homespun Sheets, a fine Holland Shirt ruffled at the Hands and Bosom, a pair of black broadcloth Breeches new seated and lined with Leather, two pair of good worsted Stockings, one of a dark Colour, and the other a lightish blue, a coarse Cambrick Handkerchief, mark'd with an F in red silk, a new pair of Calfskin Shoes, a Boy's new Castor Hat, and sundry other Things."78 Thirty shillings reward was offered, but in all probability none of the articles was ever recovered. While the new house provided Franklin with more and larger rooms than those in the Edgell house, it unquestionably proved more expensive to heat during the long winter months. This cir- cumstance surely contributed to the development of his new "fire-place," or open stove. By early February, 1740/1, he was announcing in his paper that he had for sale "very good Iron Stoves." Then, in November, 1744, he wrote that his "common Room, I know, is made twice as warm as it used to be, with a quarter

76 Franklin Receipt Book, 55 ff., APS. 77 The original lease is in the Charles Roberts Collection, Haverford College, a portion of which is printed in "Notes and Queries/' PMHB> XXIII (1899), 122. 78 Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 22, 1739. I48 HANNAH BENNER ROACH April of the wood I formerly consumed there/' and that thanks to the stoves, his family and friends had "used very warm rooms for these four winters past."79 Possibly it was here, where he had a much larger rear yard, that he said he had "nailed against the wall of my house a pigeon box that would hold six pair." He observed that "though they bred as fast as my neighbor's pigeons, I never had more than six pair, the old and strong driving out the young and weak, . . . obliging them to seek new habitations." Even though he "put up an additional box with apartments for entertaining twelve more pair" he found that these were "soon filled with inhabitants, by the overflowing of my first box, and of others in the neighborhood."80 During the years that he was a tenant of Robert Grace's, Franklin invested in two pieces of real estate on his own account. In August, 1741, he acquired on ground rent from Christopher Thompson, a bricklayer, a property on the north side of Mulberry or Arch Street, located about sixty-two feet east of Fifth and extending back to Apple Tree Alley.81 For thirty years Franklin or his agent regularly paid the annual ground rent of £3 17 s. due on this property. Not until December 13, 1771, was it extinguished by Franklin's payment of £64 3s. ^.d. to the Thompson heirs. So far as is known, Franklin never lived in the house on this lot; it is possible, however, that his mother-in-law, the Widow Read, was a lodger in it for a short time.82 That same summer of 1741, Franklin also bought on ground rent a lot in the Northern Liberties from the brickmaker William Coats.83

79 Ibid., Feb. 12, 1740/1; Writings, II, 266 (note), 270. ^Ibid., Ill, 18. 81 Deed Book H-7, 417: Aug. 1, 1741, Christopher Thompson to Benjamin Franklin. This 22-foot lot extended north 140 feet to Apple Tree Alley and was about 62 feet east of Fifth St. It was part of a larger lot appurtenant to a First Purchase made in 1681 by Amy Child of Hertford, County Hertford, England, and patented in 1701 to her and her then husband Charles Read. They sold to John Willis of Thornbury, Chester Co., in 1705. He sold to Joan Forest, widow of Walter Forest in 1716, and she conveyed to Thompson in 1720. See also "Minutes of the Board of Property," Pennsylvania Archives, Second Series, XIX, 459-460, and Nicholas B. Wainwright, "Plan of Philadelphia," PMHB, LXXX (1956), 217, for its location. 82 Deed Book IC-18,391: Dec. 13,1771, Samuel Parker to Benjamin Franklin. In the Sarah Read Receipt Book, APS, there is one notation, dated Aug. 10,1738, of Thompson's receiving £2 from her for rent. 83 Deed Book H-7, 423: July 1, 1741, William Coats to Benjamin Franklin. i960 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SLEPT HERE I49 The tract was about three acres in extent, located on the north side of what was then called Coats' Lane, now Fairmount Avenue, between Ninth and Tenth streets. It was always called the "pasture lot/' and it was from here in the spring of 1742 that there strayed "a small bay mare branded IW on the near shoulder and buttock. She, being but little and bare-footed, cannot be supposed to have gone far."84 The ground rent of £3 4^. due on this lot Franklin paid first to Coats and then to Daniel Endt, who subsequently purchased the ground rent.85 It was in Grace's house that Franklin in May, 1743, developed his "Proposal For Promoting Useful Kjiowledge aAmong The "British Plantations in

84 Pennsylvania Gazette, June 17, 1742. 85 Franklin Receipt Book, 13 ff., APS. 86 Writings, II, 228-229. 87 Autobiography, 119, 123. 88 Writings, II, 278. 89 Franklin Receipt Book, 20, APS. I5O HANNAH BENNER ROACH April twenty-first of that same month.90 On that day, the printing presses, types, and material lodged in the office fronting on Pewter Platter Alley were put into the hands of David Hall, who took over the "business and working part of Printing and of disposing of the work printed and receiving and collecting the money becoming due." The charge of rent "for so much room as is necessary to be used in the management of this Business of Printing" was to be divided in two equal parts, each to pay half, the whole to be deducted out of income. In addition, money from the government or others was to be divided equally, as were all bad debts. Relieved thus of the labor involved in his printing business, Franklin now had more time to devote to his scientific interests. He had already begun his experiments with electricity. "I never was before engaged in any study that so totally engrossed my attention and my time as this has lately done," he had written to his friend Peter Collinson in March, 1747. Between making experiments and repeating them for the benefit of his friends, he found that he had "during some months past, had little leisure for anything else."91 However, as "the din of the Market"92 had increased upon him and frequent interruptions continued to plague him, he made up his mind to get away from it all. Moreover, Hall was contemplating matrimony, and on January 7, 1748, just a week after the partner- ship articles had been signed, the young printer was married at Christ Church to Mary, daughter of the silversmith John Leacock. Undoubtedly, Franklin and his family had moved out of the Grace house by that time. In September, 1748, he wrote to Cad- wallader Colden that he had taken "the proper measures for obtain- ing leisure to enjoy life and my friends, more than heretofore, having put my printing house under the care of my partner David Hall, absolutely left off book selling, and removed to a more quiet

90 Original of this agreement is in the Charles Roberts Collection, Haverford College, and was recorded in Deed Book H-7, 421, on Feb. 17, 1757, the same date Franklin's other deeds were recorded. It is dated Jan. 1, 1747, obviously intended for 1747/8. See Writings, II, 357— 358, under date of Jan. 27, 1748, where Franklin says, "To obtain some leisure I have lately taken a partner into the printing house. . . ." 91 Writings, II, 302. 92 Ibid., 322. i960 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SLEPT HERE 151 part of the town. . . ."93 A month later, in a letter to Dr. Cad- walader Evans, then in Jamaica for his health, John Ross wrote that "our neighborhood [is] just as you left us, only B. Franklin lives in your house/'94 References to the location of this house have varied. Van Doren refers to it as Franklin's "new house at the corner of Race and Second Streets." His statement was probably based on that found in Watson's ^Annals: "In 1750 Benjamin Franklin owned and dwelt in the house at the southeast corner of Race and Second Streets."95 The Qazette for May 31, 1750, carries the notice of Sarah Dillwyn that she had to let "the House at the corner of Sassafras and Second-streets, where B. Franklin now dwells." Thus, unless Franklin made an unrecorded move between 1748 and 1750, it seems obvious that the Evans house and the Dillwyn house were one and the same, and owned by Sarah Dillwyn. She had acquired this property, located at the northwest corner of Second and Race, in May, 1749, along with two others adjoining on Second Street, from her stepmother Susanna, widow of John Dillwyn. Until his death in 1748, he had been a member of Franklin's own Union Fire Company. Certainly, Franklin did not, either in 1748 or at a later time, own it or the property at the southeast corner; on June 29 of that year Charles Brockden sold the latter place to Jacob Frank, a cordwainer.96 No early description or insurance survey of the Dillwyn house, the eighth in which Franklin lived in Philadelphia, has survived. But in 1808, when the corner property belonged to Abraham Wilt, the three-story "brick house on the north west corner of Sassafras and Second" was surveyed by the Mutual Assurance Company, which issued policy 2720 on it. In 1808, the house was said to be seventeen feet across the front and thirty-nine feet deep. The first floor was then occupied as a grocery store; the second included three rooms with chimney breast closets, surbases and washboards, and plastered window

»3 ibid., 362. 94 "Notes and Queries/' PMHB, XIII (1889), 381. 95 Van Doren, 158; Watson, I, $33. 96 Deed Books G-11, 389: May 23, 1749, Susanna Dillwyn to Sarah Dillwyn; H-6, 150: June 20, 1748, Charles Brockden to Jacob Frank. 152 HANNAH BENNER ROACH April jambs. The third story also had three rooms, plain mantels, wash- boards, closets and cased windows. The garret was undivided, but plastered. In the two-story back building, twelve by twenty-nine feet in size, there were two rooms on the first floor, one of which was a parlor with plain mantel, the other the kitchen. Upstairs were two rooms finished like the parlor, common winding stairs, and board partitions. From this description, such as it is, the basic plan of the house as it was when Franklin occupied it may be surmised. A parlor probably occupied the front portion of the main house, a sitting room the rear. The back building would have included the dining room and kitchen, presumably separated from the main house by the winding stairs. On the second floor were five chambers, one of which Franklin perhaps appropriated for his accumulating library and study where he kept his electrical apparatus. The others would have been occupied as sleeping quarters for the family, which now included little Sally, born on August 31, 1743, in the Grace house. The third floor rooms would have accommodated additional mem- bers of the family or guests, and in the garret would have been quartered the Negro servants Debby now had to help her. The lot on which the house stood extended west along Race Street one hundred feet to a four-foot alley which provided access to the rear yards of the adjoining properties.97 Exactly how long Franklin and his family occupied this house remains uncertain, for no rent receipts survive to show the extent of their tenancy. If they had moved by the time the partnership became effective in January, 1748, as they surely must have, it would have been here in the Dillwyn house that Franklin drew up his plan for a voluntary association for purposes of defense, the members of which were to act, not for pay, but "only on Principles

97 According to the Gazette of Apr. 20, 1749, the apothecary Peter Nygh lived at the Sign of the Pen-in-hand in Second St., probably either next door to or up the street a short distance from the corner of Race. The house he occupied was insured by Susanna Dillwyn, Sarah's stepmother, under Contributionship policy 40, and was surveyed by that company on June 27, 1752, Peter Nigh then being the occupant. He left the province about 1755. When Franklin was in Amsterdam in 1761, he ran into "Mr. Creliius and his Daughter that was formerly Mrs. Neigh; her husband, Dr. Neigh, died in Carolina, and she is married again and lives very well in that City. They treated us with great Civility and Kindness. . . ." Writings, IV, iio-m; Pennsylvania Gazette^ July 3, 1755. i960 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SLEPT HERE I 53 of Reason, Duty and Honour/'98 a plan which became the basis for Pennsylvania's colonial militia organization. Here, during this final winter of the War of the Austrian Succession, he helped to organize the lottery intended* to raise funds for cannon and for building the battery, christened the Association Battery, which the townspeople erected down near the Swedes' church. Certainly, it was from here that he went to New York in the spring of 1748 to solicit the loan of guns until those purchased with the lottery funds should arrive from London. As he himself said during that busy period, "The Association, lottery, and batteries fill up at present a great part of my time." Once a measure of peace was restored, Franklin hoped to find "leisure to read, study, make experiments, and converse at large with such ingenious and worthy men, as are pleased to honour me with their friendship," and at last be "uninterrupted by the little cares and fatigues of business."99 The hope was somewhat futile, for he was chosen a common councilman for the city on October 4, 1748, less than a month after he had expressed it; eight months later was made a justice of the peace for Philadelphia County on June 30, 1749; and was elected president of the newly organized Academy— outgrowth of the charity school—the following November 13.100 It was not long before he began to realize that the advantages he had thought to derive from the comparative quiet of the house at Second and Race were minimized by certain disadvantages. It was at an inconvenient distance from the State House where, as clerk of the Assembly, he had to appear each day that body was in session. Too, during the winter of 1749-1750, after his return from a trip into the Jerseys, he was troubled with a sore leg101 and was unable to get about as much as usual. As for Debby, who had lived all her life on Market Street within sound of the bell before the Court House steps, she probably found that her favorite shops and friends were entirely too far away for

08 Ibid.y Dec. 3, 1747. 99 Autobiography, 125; Writings, II, 359, 363. 100 Minutes of the Common Council of the City of Philadelphia 1704 to 1776 (Philadelphia, 1847), 5°2; Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1852), V, 388, hereinafter cited as Colonial Records; Thomas Harrison Montgomery, A History of the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania From Its Foundation to A, D. 1770 (Philadelphia, 1900), 52. 101 Writings, III, 1-3. 154 HANNAH BENNER ROACH April frequent visits, particularly during the winter months when the streets often were so nearly impassable as to keep her immured within the four walls of their home. In short, both must have found they missed the bustle and clamor which for nearly twenty years had surrounded them. By the spring of 1750, therefore, they had given notice to their landlady Sarah Dillwyn, who promptly inserted her ad- vertisement in the Qazette. By early July their tenancy had terminated. Their new landlord, Franklin's ninth, was Timothy Matlack, who acknowledged on November 23, 1750, having received from Franklin £10, due the fifth of the previous October, for a quarter's rent, i.e., for occupancy during July, August, and September.102 Matlack had moved to Philadelphia from Haddonfield in Glou- cester County, New Jersey, early in 1746,103 after purchasing from the overseers of the Friends' Public School a large lot on the north side of Market between Third and Fourth streets, immediately west of John Wister's property.104 At the time of his purchase, Matlack had engaged to build on the new lot, within three years of the date of purchase, "two good and substantial Brick houses . . . each house to be of the height of three stories." While these were going up, he rented a house, also on the north side of Market, on the west of and next door to the old Edgell

102 Franklin Receipt Book, 61, 62, 63, APS. It must be kept in mind that rent was not paid in advance in those days, as it is at present. Evidence supporting this deduction is found in the Grace-Franklin lease, executed Dec. 30, 1745, wherein the first payment of rent was stipulated to be paid on July 1, 1746. Similar evidences are to be found in all colonial property purchases made on ground rent. 103 Matlack presented a certificate of removal on May 30, 1746, to the Philadelphia Monthly Meeting of Friends for himself, his second wife Martha, and daughter Sybil, "he intending to settle in this city." PGSP, IX, 236. He had married his first wife Mary, daughter of Richard Haines of Evesham Twp., Burlington Co. on 3 4m 1720. Presumably, he was a son of the William Matlack who signed their marriage certificate directly under their own signa- tures. Timothy Matlack's second wife Martha, daughter of Henry Burr of Northampton Twp., Burlington Co., was the widow of Josiah Haines, a nephew of Timothy's father-in-law Richard Haines. When Martha married Timothy after her first husband's death in 1729, she was the mother of two children, Reuben and Mary Haines, both then under age. Reuben Haines sub- sequently became Timothy's executor, and in 1760 married Margaret Wister. By 1742, Mat- lack was the father of nine children, of whom the sons were Timothy, member of the Constitu- tional Convention in 1776 and secretary of state under that constitution, and Titus, Seth, White, and Josiah. See "Abstracts of Wills," New Jersey Archives, First Series, XXIII, 199, 200; XXX, 77; Haddonfield Monthly Meeting Abstracts (1681-1828), 159, GSP; Deed Book 1-8, 308: Oct. 22, 1765, Release of Matlack heirs to Reuben Haines. 104 Deed Book IC-i, 274: Jan. 1, 1745/6. i960 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SLEPT HERE I 55 house. The owner of this property, on the site of the present 141 Market Street, was the aging carpenter Thomas Nickson, originally from Deptford Township in Gloucester County, and probably a long-time friend of the Matlacks.105 In the Qazette for April 24, 1746, Matlack had announced that he had "removed and settled in Philadelphia, against the Jersey-Market, a little above the Post-Office, in Market-street, at the sign of the two Sugar-Loves, marked TM in gold letters." Attendance, he added, would be given at Haddonfield "the second day in every month during the summer season, in order to settle with debtors/' Between 1746 and 1750, Matlack went into the brewing business, erecting a brewhouse and malthouse on part of the Market Street property he had purchased next to John Wister. In 1750, he decided to move nearer that business, and by the first week in July of that year had "removed to his brew-house, in Market-street, between Third and Fourth-streets at the sign of the brewer's horse and dray, where he carries on the brewing trade, and shopk£eping as usual."106 It was not mere chance which led the Franklins to choose Matlack for their next landlord. In April, 1736, while Matlack was keeping shop in New Jersey and long before his removal to Philadelphia, Franklin had noted in his shop book that Matlack had returned twenty-four almanacs, and was "to have as many next year for them."107 Furthermore, Franklin was still living in Grace's house when Matlack had moved into the Nickson house. A renewal of their old acquaintanceship was inevitable. As a result, when Franklin learned that Matlack had a lease with the Nickson heirs which presumably still had some time to run, he was quite willing to oblige Matlack by becoming a subtenant. Both Franklin and Debby were no doubt secretly delighted at the prospect of getting back once more into the midst of Market Street's clamor and din.

105 See the will of Thomas Nickson, dated 8 4m 1749, in which he devised the house "wherein Timothy Matlack now dwelleth" on the north side of Market St. to his widow Rebeckah Nickson for life. Will Book I, 152, #93: 1749. Nickson's "cousin" or nephew James Chattin, mentioned in the will, reputedly was apprenticed to Franklin. Bernard Fay, Franklin: Apostle 0} Modern Times (New York, 1929), 233. !06 Pennsylvania Gazette', July 5, 1750. 107 Franklin Shop Book, begun Nov. 14, 1735, APS, under date of Apr. 18, 1736. 156 HANNAH BENNER ROACH April No description of this house seems to have survived. In fact, the property apparently was not insured until 1838,108 after the original house had been torn down and a four-story structure erected in its place on a lot of somewhat altered size. The original boundaries of the lot, however, describe the property as being fifteen feet in front on Market Street. It extended north thirty-nine feet—the depth of the Edgell lot next door—then widened on the east to twenty-eight feet, lapping the back end of the Edgell lot, and then extended north another twenty-one feet for a full depth of sixty feet. The house itself probably was three stories high, like the other houses along that side of the Jersey Market, had two rooms on a floor, with a kitchen wing either two or three stories high appended in the back. In the alley running along the west property line there was a well for joint use with the house next door.109 For this prop- erty, even older than the Edgell house on the east, since it had been built between 1692 and 1707, Franklin paid Matlack £40 a year in installments at the end of each quarter. Just a month before Franklin paid Matlack his first quarter's rent, "the house of Benjamin Franklin, printer, was broken open."110 This time a great many more articles were "feloniously taken away, viz: A double necklace of gold beads, a woman's long scarlet cloak, almost new, with a double cape, a woman's gown of printed cotton, of the sort called brocade print, very remarkable, the ground dark, with large red roses, and other large red and yellow flowers, with blue in some of the flowers, and smaller blue and white flowers, with many green leaves, a pair of woman's stays, covered with white tabby before, and dove-colour'd tabby behind, with two large steel hooks, and sundry other goods. ..." Perhaps because Franklin offered a reward of £10 for Debby's lost finery, some of these articles may have been recovered. Certainly, her "remarkable" gown would have been easy to identify! During the year and a half he lived in this house on the site of 141 Market Street, Franklin continued the experiments he had begun in the Grace house, developing his theories on electricity and

108 Mutual Assurance Company policy 5541, surveyed on Aug. 22,1838, for Leonard Jewell. 109 Deed Book E-7-9, 186: Dec. 25,1713, Anthony Morris to Thomas Nixon [sic]. For title to this lot, see Block 1-N-2, lot 223, Registry Division. no Pennsylvania Gazette, Nov. 1 and 15, 1750. i960 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SLEPT HERE 157 the cause and effects of lightning. It was here that two days before Christmas, 1750, "being about to kill a turkey by the shock from two large glass jars" filled with "electrical fire/' he sustained the shock through his whole body which momentarily stunned him.111 Whether or not he left the turkey's demise to the more usual practices of slaughtering, or carried out his own unorthodox method, he did not allow the incident to halt other experiments. During the winter, he continued his theorizing and demonstrations, gave thought to the advantages to be derived from a union of the several colonies in their dealings with Indians, argued against the importa- tion of felons into the colonies, for the establishment of an office for insuring houses against damage by fire, and gave encouragement to the burgeoning plans for a provincial hospital for the sick and insane.112 Then, in May, 1751, following the death of the merchant William Clymer, at a special election to fill Clymer's unexpired term in the Assembly Franklin was for the first time elected a burgess for the city. Since the Assembly adjourned the day after the election, it was not until August 13, 1751, that he took his seat. The following October he was re-elected in his own right, and was also chosen alderman for the city by the Corporation.113 By that time, Franklin had moved again. Just what circumstances induced him to make this move can only be conjectured. Possibly the fact that Matlack had gotten into financial difficulties had something to do with it. The brewer's shop and goods were seized by the sheriff during the summer of 1751 and put up for sale in August.114 Then again, old Thomas Nickson had died in the summer of 1749, leaving the Market Street property entailed on his wife Rachel, his widowed daughter Jane Waite, and her children. If Matlack's lease had expired by 1751, and the Nickson heirs wanted to raise the rent, Franklin may very well have declined paying more, considering the property too ancient to be worth a greater sum. Furthermore, during the in Writings, III, 32. 112 Ibid., Ill, 40, 45. See also Harrold E. Gillingham, "Philadelphia's First Fire Defenses," PMHB, LVI (1932), 369; Votes, IV, 3406-3418 passim. 113 Pennsylvania Gazette, May 9, 1751; Votes, IV, 3431-3432, 3467; Minutes of Common Council . . . , 550. H4 Pennsylvania Gazette, Aug. 22, 1751. I58 HANNAH BENNER ROACH April past summer Franklin quietly had begun to solicit through friends in England the post of deputy postmaster general of America.115 Anticipating this additional office and the imminent widening of his political activities through his seat in the Assembly, he may have decided that a location nearer the State House and one in better physical condition would be more to his advantage. Whatever his reason for moving, by the time the elections in October, 1751, had been held, he was established farther up Market Street almost opposite the former Read houses in the square between Third and Fourth. This place, the site of the present 325 Market Street, belonged to the German merchant John Wister, a native of Hillspach near Heidelberg, who had emigrated to Philadelphia in 1727.116 Wister had purchased the house and lot in 1738 for £511 from the turner Caleb Ransted. Ransted had built the house some time after 1726, the year he had purchased the lot from Dennis Rochford.117 Wister also owned the two houses immediately east of number 325 as well as the house in which he himself lived on the west of that rented to Franklin, next to Timothy Matlack's Market Street property.118 Between Wister's dwelling and Franklin's a six-foot alley ran probably the full depth of Franklin's one hundred- and-fifty-foot lot. This tenth house Franklin occupied was of brick, three stories high, eighteen and a half feet across the front by thirty-one and a half feet in depth. As in the old Read houses across the street, the west wall was only four inches thick, the east the same for one story only, "then plaistered to top." A two-story kitchen "about"

115 Writings, III, 49. 116 See Townsend Ward, "The Germantown Road and Its Associations," PMHB, V (1881), 384 ff., for biographical data on John Wister. The old number of the property rented by Franklin was 141 Market St., according to Watson, I, 532. 117 Deed Book F-9, 372: July 7, 1737/8, Caleb Ransted to John Wister. Ransted in 1707 had married Mary Warder, sister of the schoolmaster Richard Warder with whom, or in whose house, the Widow Read had lived in 1736. After the death of his first wife, Caleb Ransted in 1731 married Rachel Pratt. They removed to England in 1747. PGSP, VI, 214; IX, 24; X, $6- See also Will Book C, 217, #267: 1711, the will of John Warder, brother of Caleb and Richard Warder. 118 Wister bought the easternmost of the two houses in 1740/1. Deed Book G-i, 166: Jan. 17, 1740/1, Septimus Robinson to John Wister. The one next door to Franklin he bought in 1748. Deed Book G-n, 68: Dec. 5, 1748, Samuel Emlen to John Wister. Both houses had been built by Ransted, i960 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SLEPT HERE I 59 eight and a half by thirty feet extended north, probably along the east party line.119 No description of the interior has survived for this period. The main house probably had the usual two rooms on a floor, with kitchen and washhouse back. In most ways, it undoubtedly re- sembled the Edgell house and obviously was not as large as the Dillwyn dwelling at Second and Race. It presumably did have a larger yard, for the original lot, when Wister bought the property, extended across the back of the two adjacent lots on the east for a total width of forty-nine and a half feet. Here Franklin lived with his family for at least four years, paying Wister an annual rental of £38 in half-yearly installments, due the twelfth of April and October.120 It was a busy period for Franklin. The family had no more than moved in when they took off on a visit to the Wrights of Hempfield on the Susquehanna during the fall recess of the Assembly, and did not return until the middle of November.121 Perhaps as a result of the trip, it was not until a month later, on December 13, 1751, that Franklin got around to settling his account with Matlack, paying him the last £10 due "for rent of the house in the Jersey Market." A month later, Franklin announced in the Qazette that "The Post-Office for receiving and delivering Letters, is removed up Market-street, a little above the Prison, on the opposite Side of the Way; but the Printing-Office continues near the Jersey Market, where the Gazettes are delivered, and Books and Stationery sold as usual." The ambiguous wording of this announcement regarding the post office presents two possible interpretations. The one generally accepted states that the post office was removed to one of the Read houses on the south side of Market Street, a location certainly "a little above the Prison," then at the southwest corner of Third and Market.122 However, it might also be interpreted to

H9 As the original survey is missing, the description has been taken from that in the Con- tributionship Journal. Policy 118 was issued on Nov. 20, 175a, on this and Wister's three ad- joining properties. 120 Franklin Receipt Book, 6$, 66, 67, 69, 70, 73, APS. 121 Writings, III, 49. 122 The announcement appeared in the Gazette for Jan. 14, 1752. Cf. Eddy, II, no, for his interpretation which was followed in Van Doren, an. l6o HANNAH BENNER ROACH April mean that the office was "on the opposite side of the Way" from the prison, and now located in Franklin's own dwelling. He was hopeful of obtaining the deputy postmaster-generalship and may well have thought it advisable to have the post office literally under his personal supervision. During that late winter and the spring of 1752, Franklin found time not only to act as secretary to the board of the new Provincial, later Pennsylvania, Hospital, established in Judge Kinsey's former house just above Fifth Street on the south side of Market,123 but to carry on his electrical experiments. It is believed that he conducted his famous kite experiment at this time. In addition, his project for opening an insurance office matured when the Philadelphia Contributionship for Insuring Houses from Loss by Fire was established. Franklin himself was among the first to subscribe to it: his properties across the street, the old Read houses, were surveyed in mid-June, 1752, and insured under policies 19 and 20. After the kite experiment, Franklin in September installed on his own dwelling "an iron rod to draw the lightning down into my house ... with two bells to give notice when the rod should be electrify'd. . . ."124 Wister, no doubt aware of this contraption, apparently decided he'd better join the Contributionship also, if only for self-protection, and in November had all his properties on Market Street insured, including that occupied by Franklin. During the following summer of 1753, Franklin spent little time in Philadelphia. For ten long weeks he traveled in New England on postal affairs and evolved a new system for the mails which he hoped to put into effect. That journey was followed closely by one to Carlisle on the western frontier as a commissioner to treat with the Indians.125 Between these two trips, in all probability, he learned that his appointment as "Deputy Postmaster and Manager of all his Majesty's Provinces and Dominions on the Continent of North America" finally had gone through. In July, he moved the post office to "the house in Third-street, the next door but one

123 Original Minute Book, Pennsylvania Hospital, I, 13, 14. 124 Writings, III, 149. See also Watson, I, 532. 125 Writings, III, 146-148, 163. i960 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SLEPT HERE l6l above Church-alley/' and appointed his son William, now about twenty-two, deputy postmaster of Philadelphia.126 From mid-June to mid-July, 1754, Franklin was at Albany as one of the commissioners sent to treat with the Indians of the Six Nations in the move to counteract disturbing reports of French encroachments on the western frontiers.127 Here he presented his ideas on the advantages of a union of the colonies. Once he returned from that journey, he turned his attention again to post office matters, and early in September set out to visit all the post offices in the northern colonies. He was gone until late February, I755>128 which may explain why he failed to pay his rent for the previous year until late the following May. This was the year which saw Braddock's defeat, and between March and June Franklin was greatly occupied with matters having to do with that ill-fated venture. A trip to Maryland to establish lines of communications and one to Lancaster with his son to round up wagons and provisions kept him on the go. During that disastrous summer of 1755, while employed, as he said, largely "in the service of an unfortunate army/'129 he gave bond or advanced large sums of his own money for provisions for the troops when the back- country folk held back. By the autumn of 1755, he may have begun to feel the pinch of his generosity, for a gap appears in his record of rent receipts; no notation of his paying rent to anyone for the following year has been found. Three explanations suggest themselves. He may only have neglected to get Wister's acknowledgment recorded in his receipt book. The family may have moved across the street into one of the old Read houses, or into the Thompson house in Arch which he had bought in 1741, quitting the Wister house at the end of the quarter terminating October 12, 1755. A third possibility is suggested by two cryptic notations made by Deborah Franklin in the memo book which she began on April 3, 1757. Under date of April 1, 1758, one reads, "Paid to Mr. Dehaven for wood and Shuger which he got for me at the time we was in Mr.

126 Pennsylvania Gazette, July 5, 1753. 127 Colonial Records, VI, 57-133. 128 Writings, III, 228, 230, 241, 243. 129 Itid., 279; Van Doren, 229-230. l6a HANNAH BENNER ROACH April Hughes house £2. 5. o."; below this is the note, "For wood put into the new house and the sawing £0. 8. 4."130 Possibly the two items refer to services performed at widely differing times. But since the year from October, 1755, to October, 1756, is the only period for which no rent receipts are noted in the receipt book, "the time we was in Mr. Hughes house" would seem to refer to that year; other- wise, it appears inexplicable. John Hughes, then a baker recently in partnership with Moses Standley,131 and later to become famous as the stamp officer recom- mended by Franklin, had just been elected a representative for the county to the Assembly. In 1751, he had bought a house and lot around the corner from Market Street on the west side of Fourth "near the Academy," which eventually became his town house. In 1756, however, he was living down in Dock Ward.132 Peter Dehaven had not been long married to Sarah Hughes, probably a sister of John Hughes. Manager of the gun factory at French Creek and agent for forfeited estates during the Revolution, it was not until 1763 that he bought the house south of and next door to Hughes's dwelling in Fourth Street. In 1755 and 1756, it seems likely he either was in Hughes's employ in the bakehouse back of the Fourth Street place, or was renting the house he later purchased.133 The Hughes house, perhaps the eleventh to be occupied by Franklin, was similar to the dwellings he had previously rented. Located on the site of the present 38 North Fourth Street, it was eighteen feet wide by thirty-one feet deep on a lot which extended

130 Benjamin Franklin Memorandum Book (1757-1776), 3, APS. This ledger was begun for Deborah's benefit when Franklin first went to England in the spring of 1757. The early entries are in her handwriting, but when Franklin returned to Philadelphia in 1762 he took over its keeping. See entry on page 11 where he noted,"Nov. 1,17621 arrived at home from England." 131 Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 5, 1756. !32 Deed Books I-14, 208: Apr. 5, 1751, Jacob Kraft to John Hughes; I-14, 210: Mar. 14, 1775, Isaac Hughes to Jacob Ehrenzeller. In the Tax List for Dock Ward, 1756, Hughes was listed as a merchant. 133 Deed Book H-16, $3: Feb. 31,1763 [sic], Sarah and Mary Price to Peter Dehaven. His name is not found in any of the wards covered by the 1756 tax list. An advertisement in the Gazette for Apr. 22, 1756, states that Jonathan Dodd, saddler from Elizabeth Town, N. J., "has set up his business in Market-street, Philadelphia, opposite to Benjamin Franklin's, Esq." This cannot be reconciled with the presumption that Franklin had moved to Fourth St., unless Dodd, a stranger in town, mistakenly believed Franklin still lived in the Wister house, and that David Hall had failed to enlighten him when the advertisement was offered for printing. i960 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SLEPT HERE 163 west one hundred and forty-eight feet. The house, three stories high, was built of nine-inch brick except on the south over the alley which ran between it and Dehaven's future house. Here "one gable and from the garret floor upwards" were four and a half inches thick. Two rooms on a floor "plainly finished/' board newel stairs, and plastered garret were the only interior items noted in 1775. By that time, the back building had been replaced; it was then described as eleven by thirty-four feet, two stories high, "built about 8 or 9 years since."134 If Franklin moved into this house in the fall of 1755, he barely would have been settled when he began to lay plans for a trip to Virginia as soon as the Assembly should recess. Before he could get off, however, he became sick and was confined to his chamber and bed for nearly a week.135 Then, when he had only just recovered, the Assembly was called into extra session by news of alarming Indian encroachments just beyond the Blue Mountains. As a result, all during November Franklin was fully occupied with governmental business. Finally, after a supply bill had been passed and a new militia act inaugurated, on December 18 he left with James Hamilton and Joseph Fox "in order to settle Matters for the Defense of the Province."136 The day before his departure, he got around to paying John Wister the £19 due the previous October 12 for the past half-year's rent for the house he possibly no longer occupied. By the time of his return from the northern frontiers early in February, 1756, after seeing to the erection of a line of forts between the Delaware and Susquehanna, the militia organization he had sponsored was well under way. The volunteer soldiers chose him their colonel; when he reviewed his regiment he recalled that they "accompanied me to my house, and would salute me with some rounds fired before my door, which shook down and broke several glasses of my electrical apparatus."137

134 Contributionship Survey Book 2,134, microfilm roll #6, HSP. Policy 1959 was issued on July 22, 1775, to Jacob Ehrenzeller, who had purchased the property from the Hughes heirs (see Note 132 above). For title to this lot, see Block 1-N-3, lot 133, Registry Division. 135 Writings, III, 291-295. 136 Pennsylvania Gazette, Oct. 23 and 30, Dec. 18, 1755. 137 Autobiography, 170. See also Pennsylvania Gazette, Mar. 25, 1756. 164 HANNAH BENNER ROACH April The next day, March 18, 1756, Franklin set out on his deferred Virginia trip. This time "20 Officers of my Regiment with about 30 Grenadiers, presented themselves on Horseback at my Door just as I was going to mount, to accompany me to the Ferry about 3 Miles from Town. 'Till we got to the end of the Street, which is about 200 yards, the Grenadiers took it into their Heads to ride with their Swords drawn, but then they put them up peaceably unto their Scabbards, without hurting or even terrifying Man, Woman or Child: and from the Ferry where we took leave and parted, they all returned as quietly to their Homes."138 Far from terrifying them, this enthusiastic display of military splendor must have entranced the students at the Academy next door, all of whom surely turned out to see the procession start off. During the remainder of the spring and summer Franklin was in residence only periodically* He missed the April session of the Assembly and was not back in town until early May. Then, from the tenth of that month, when the Assembly once more convened, until mid-June, he was occupied with its business. By the end of June he had gone to New York where he remained until early August, missing the July session. He was back in town, however, when the new lieutenant governor, William Denny, arrived, bringing with him the medal awarded Franklin by the Royal Society of London "on account of his curious experiments and observations on electricity," and Franklin's certificate of membership in that body.139 The Assembly adjourned during the next to the last week in September, and the annual election was held on the first of October, By the time the new Assembly met on October 14, Franklin appar- ently had moved once more. On October 11, 1757, a year later, John Wister acknowledged the receipt from Mrs. Franklin of £42 for one year's house rent. With this move the Franklins found themselves back on Market Street, but in which of the Wister houses remains unresolved. The increase in rent from £38 to £42 might indicate a newer or larger 138 Writings, III, 348. Franklin's estimate of "200 yards" to the end of the street seems excessive, wherever he was living at the time. The Hughes house was only a little more than 300 feet from Market St., the Wister house less than 150 feet from Fourth, and just over 200 feet from Third. 139 Votes, V, 4180, 4212, 4233, 4287, 4314; Autobiography, 176; Van Doren, 170. i960 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SLEPT HERE 165 place, such as Wister's own house next door to that originally occupied by Franklin, or merely the natural increase in prices resulting from the war. Franklin, writing to his wife from Easton where he went early in November, 1756, to help negotiate a treaty with the Delawares, mentioned having sent other letters to her by a messenger who "lodged at Honey's, next door to you."140 This was George Honey, taxed that year in North Ward as a tavern keeper, who from time to time had accommodated visiting Indians for the authorities.141 Where his tavern was located has not been ascertained, although possibly it was the King of Prussia "in Market-street, between Third and Fourth," either owned by Wister and formerly let to Henry Keppele, or located between Wister's dwelling and Fourth Street.142 Again, when Franklin wrote to his wife from London in 1758, he told her that "if the ringing of the Bells frightens you, tie a Piece of Wire from one Bell to the other and that will conduct the lightning without ringing or snapping, but silently."143 Unless he had installed a new set of bells, connected to a lightning rod erected on another house, his advice to her would seem to indicate that they were back in, or had never left, the Wister house at 325 Market Street. Whether he lived here, next door to the King of Prussia kept by George Honey, or not, Franklin was to live in Wister's house only a few months longer. As has been noted, by early November he had gone to Easton, was back by the end of the month, and by the first of March, 1757, was preparing to embark for London as agent for the province. Since William Franklin was to accompany

140 Writings, III, 350.

141 Votesy V, 4070, 4349-4350, 4363. In 1768, Honey was keeping a tavern of some sort in Mulberry Ward "at the upper end of Arch-street" where fireworks frequently were displayed. Pennsylvania Gazette, Sept. 15, 1768; Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser, Apr. 27, 1769. 142 According to the Gazette for Nov. 15, 1759, Michael Hutz was at the King of Prussia in Market St. In the same paper, May 19, 1763, Benjamin Humphrey's Sign of the New Scythe was in Market St. between Third and Fourth, a little above the Prison "and directly opposite the King of Prussia Tavern." Again in the Gazette, Nov. 20, 1760, Charles Thomson had an- nounced that he was living "in Market-street, nearly opposite to the King of Prussia Tavern, and a few doors below the Indian Queen." Thomson's dwelling at that time was on the site of 324 Market St., more or less directly opposite 325 Market St. where Franklin had lived. W Writings, III, 441. 166 HANNAH BENNER ROACH April his father to England, arrangements were made to move the post office once more. By the end of that month, it was "removed to the House of the Post-Master General in Market-street/'144 Before another week had passed, Franklin and his son had left for New York, from whence they would sail for London. It would be five and a half years before Franklin would see Philadelphia again. For the first three of those years Deborah dutifully paid John Wister his rent on the eleventh of each October. Toward the end of that time, Franklin's old friend William Strahan invited Debby and Sally, just entering young maidenhood, on a visit to England. Debby demurred on one pretext or another. Then in 1760, when Sally was almost seventeen, the London printer extended a formal proposal of marriage between his son and the Franklins' daughter. Possibly Debby toyed with the idea for a time, for on August 21, 1760, she paid Wister only £30 in part payment for the rent. Then her "invincible Aversion to crossing the Seas"145 and her refusal to part with Sally prevailed. On October 12, 1760, she paid the balance of £12 due for the previous year's rent. By the beginning of 1761, Franklin was talking optimistically about coming home.146 Perhaps he had given some thought to his place of abode once he returned to American soil; perhaps it was Debby who had raised the subject of a new home, for it seems evident she knew what she wanted to do. Almost directly across the street and some sixty feet west of her father's original houses, she had watched the building of two new houses. She must have longed for one of them, after living for thirty years in old ones, but these would not be completed for some time. However, to the east of them, next door to the old Eastburn house, was one which was almost as new and which as yet had found no occupant. Inquiry had revealed that this house belonging to Anthony Morris, Jr., had been sold only the past winter to Adam Eckert, a young German joiner.147 This was the house, now occupying

144 Pennsylvania Gazettey Mar. 31, 1757. 145 Writings, IV, 9-10. 14<3 Ibid., 89. *47 Deed Book D-i, 120: Mar, 1,1777, Adam Eckert to John Marshall, reciting that Morris had sold the messuage and lot to Eckert on Dec. 26, 1760. On the same date, Morris had sold the adjoining 33-foot lot to Jacob Graff, a mason and bricklayer, who built the houses on the lot, and later furnished brick for Franklin's last dwelling. Just when the Eckert house was i960 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SLEPT HERE l6j the site of the present 326 Market Street, in which Debby decided she wanted to live. Negotiations were concluded quickly. By the end of April, 1761, Debby and her household were installed in the new place. On June 2, 1761, she paid John Wister £17 10s. in full for rent due, and on July 15, some six weeks later, she paid Adam Eckert £20 for a quarter's rent, evidence of her tenancy since April.148 Franklin could very well be "amaz'd at ... the high Rent I hear are given for Houses/'148 The house, either the twelfth or thirteenth Franklin would occupy, does not appear to have been in any way particularly outstanding in spite of its annual rental of £80. It was of the usual brick, three stories high, and stood on a lot one hundred feet deep. Along the back property line a five-foot alley connected with a three-foot alley separating the lot from the Eastburn property. The latter, now owned by Dr. Francis Alison, was currently occupied by young Charles Thomson, whom Franklin already knew from their joint attendance at Indian treaties.150

erected is uncertain. When John Eastburn sold, in September, 1751, his brother Benjamin's house to Francis Alison, the property on the west, later bought by Eckert, was described as "Anthony Morris* ground and a three foot alley." In the Gazette for Mar. 1, 1759, Anthony Morris advertised that he had sundry lots to let on ground rent "in High-street, between Charles Brockden's and a lot late of Benjamin Eastburn," intimating that there were no houses between these two. As the original Morris-Eckert deed was never recorded, the most likely conclusion to be reached is that the Eckert house was built after 1751 and probably during 1759 and 1760. For title to the lot, see Block 1-S-3, lot 165, Registry Division. In 1777, John Mar- shall, who had bought the place from Eckert that year, sold it to Frederick Shinckle, a leather dresser and breeches maker; in 1762 and 1763, he made breeches for one of the Franklin Negroes, and furnished wool and two pairs of gloves for them. In the latter year, he bought from Jacob Graff the house on the west of the Eckert property. Receipts of Benjamin Franklin to Frederick Shinkle, Franklin Collection, HSP; Deed Book D-33, 320: Apr. 13, 1763, Jacob Graff to Frederick Shengel. 148 Franklin Receipt Book, 82, 84, 86, 87, 88, APS. 149 Benjamin Franklin to David Hall, Mar. 28, 1760, Gratz Collection, HSP. 150 Advertisements in the Gazette reveal that by Nov. 2, 1769, Thomson had moved to Second St. where he had Philadelphia rum for sale, and had a distillery near Kensington. By- Apr. 26, 1770, his "Cordial Store" in Second a little above Arch had been moved to the house of Mr. Chevalier. By Oct. 25, 1770, he had engaged "in another business" and moved out of town. Until about 1779, he lived in the Northern Liberties. In that year and through 1782, he was taxed in North Ward where he lived on the north side of Market St. on the property formerly numbered 521, now included within the bounds of the second block of Independence Mall. l68 HANNAH BENNER ROACH April The front building on the lot, described in 1776 as "about 16 years old/' was sixteen feet wide and thirty-two feet deep, had the customary two rooms on a floor, plastered partitions, board newel stairs and chimney breasts. The back building, extending south on the west side of the lot, was ten by thirty-three feet in size, was two stories high, and probably housed the kitchen and auxiliary rooms. The walls of both buildings were built of nine-inch brick.161 That year the whole was valued for insurance purposes at only £350, whereas the following year Eckert sold the premises for £1,000. When Franklin finally returned to Philadelphia on November 1, 1762, it was in this house of Adam Eckert's that he saw displayed for the first time the little articles of furnishing he had sent his wife in 1758: the examples of English china "from all the China Works in England/' silver salt spoons, steel snuffers, snuffstand and extinguisher, carpeting "for a best Room Floor/' intended "to be sow'd together, the Edges being first fell'd down, and Care taken to make the Figures meet exactly," with "Bordering for the same," as well as the cotton cloth printed from copper plates, "a new Invention," now made up into bed and window curtains. To these could now be added the "compleat Set of Table China," the two pairs of silver candlesticks and the silver-handled knives and forks he had purchased in London, but had kept with him there as he was "oblig'd sometimes to entertain polite Company."152 Back in Phila- delphia they were undoubtedly put to use immediately, since for a time after his arrival the place "was full of a succession" of friends "from morning to night," all congratulating him on his return "with the utmost cordiality and affection."153 Once the first excitement of his return had diminished, Franklin settled down to the business of adjusting himself once more to the Philadelphia scene. There were accounts to be settled with his partner David Hall, and apparatus to be arranged so that he might divert himself in his spare moments by scientific inquiry. On January 1, 1763, he invested £100 in a lot on the west side of Sixth Street 151 Contributionship Survey Book I, 76, microfilm roll #6, HSP. On May 9, 1776, Eckert was issued policies 1948,1949,1950 and 1951. Which policy covered this propert> is uncertain, for no number is given in the Survey Book. The numbers themselves are from "List of Surveys 1-2111, 1752-1784," microfilm roll #7, HSP. 152 Writings, III, 43^433- 153/£/

154 Deed Book D-23, 328: Jan. i, 1763, Elizabeth Henmarsh to Benjamin Franklin. 155 Votes, VI, 5405. 156 Deed Book H-7,426: Mar. 25, 1755, Samuel Preston Moore to Benjamin Franklin. This lot widened on the east, at a distance of 140 feet south of Market, to i>3 feet, then extended that width farther south to the back end of Chestnut St. lots for a total depth of 306 feet from Market. The annual ground rent was £10. The Syddon lot was 15^2 feet wide for a distance south of 89 feet, then widened on the east to 33 feet. From there it extended farther south that width to Chestnut St. lots. Franklin thus had 99 feet across his south property line. He subse- quently purchased the Syddon lot in 1765 for £900. Deed Book H-21, 481: Sept. 26, 1765, Anthony Syddon to Benjamin Franklin. Rent receipts paid to John Reynell for use of the Philadelphia Monthly Meeting for this lot are noted in the Franklin Receipt Book for the years 1754-1758; for the Moore lot, 1753-1758, APS. I7O HANNAH BENNER ROACH April men of substance met, and his own printing office still in the little building in Pewter Platter Alley. When the Assembly recessed for three weeks during March, 1763, Franklin made a quick journey to New Jersey to see his son William, recently married in England and just arrived from there with his appointment as royal governor of the colony. By the time Franklin got back to town for the Assembly's reconvening on March 29, he had made up his mind definitely about his house. While he was in New Jersey, he doubtless had inspected Nassau Hall, built within the last ten years for the College of New Jersey from plans made by the Philadelphia carpenter-architect Robert Smith. Franklin already was familiar with his work in town: the steeple of Christ Church, the new Episcopal church at Third and Pine, and the new building going up on the old Academy grounds on Fourth Street. Currently, Franklin had learned that two houses were going to be built on Third Street under Smith's supervision for Joshua Maddox's widow Mary. Smith was the man for Franklin.157 The building project was discussed with Smith, terms agreed upon, and four days after the Assembly had risen, Franklin, on April 6, 1763, advanced him £96 "toward my house." Ten days later, he placed some £600 in Philip Syng's hands "to be drawn by Mr. Rhoads"—presumably the supervising carpenter Samuel Rhoads —"as occasion requires to carry on my building,"158 and then set off for Virginia on post office business. By the end of May, he was back in Philadelphia, but was gone again within ten days, this time to New York and thence to New England, inspecting post offices and setting up new and improved schedules for the mails.159 In spite of his preoccupation with these matters he still found time to think about the new house. He wrote Debby to have Mr. Rhoads "send me an Invoice of such Locks, Hinges and the like as cannot be had at Philadelphia, and will be necessary for my House, that I may send for them." "Let me know from time to time how it goes on," he urged her, as he and Sally, who joined him in New York, proceeded on their way north.160 157 Charles E. Peterson, "Carpenters' Hall," American Philosophical Society Transactions, No. 43, Pt. 1, 119-120. 158 Benjamin Franklin Memorandum Book (1757-1776), 13, 14, APS. 159 Writings, IV, 197, 199, 200. 160 Ibid., 202-204. i960 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SLEPT HERE I7I Although he had expected to be back before the summer was over, in early July he suffered a fall from his horse and was laid up in Connecticut for nearly a month. Then he had another accident in August which resulted in a dislocated arm, and was further delayed. It was not until November 5, 1763, that he finally got back home, having covered, in spite of his injuries, sixteen hundred miles of country since early April.161 "Public business and our publick confusions" kept him so fully occupied during the following winter that "Philosophical Matters could not be attended to."162 The week before he had returned to Phila- delphia from New England, John and Richard Penn had arrived from England, the former bearing his commission as governor of the province. Franklin, in spite of his differences of opinion with regard to proprietary interests, upon the new governor's arrival considered "government as government, and paid him all respect," making every effort to promote "in the Assembly a ready compliance with every thing he proposed or recommended." In January, 1764, when word of the riots in Paxtang arrived in town, Franklin even "wrote a pamphlet ... to render the rioters unpopular; promoted an association to support the authority of the Government and defend the Governor by taking arms, signed it first myself and was followed by several hundreds, who took arms accordingly." The governor offered Franklin the command of these volunteers, but Franklin chose "to carry a musket and strengthen . . . authority by setting an example of obedience to this order." When the rioters actually appeared in Germantown early in February 1764, the governor, Franklin wrote, "did me the honour ... to run to my house at mid-night, with his counsellors at his heels, for advice, and made it his head-quarters for some time." All within twenty-four hours, Franklin continued, he was "a com- mon soldier, a counsellor, a kind of dictator, an ambassador to the country mob, and on his returning home, nobody again." Before and during those twenty-four hours, the walls of the Eckert house must have witnessed strange sights: nervous officials of province and city, parsons offering their services as mediators, couriers coming and going with orders for the ferries, to the barracks, to

161 Ibid., 205, 207, 208, 211; Van Doren, 305. 162 Writings, IV, 215, 218. 172 HANNAH BENNER ROACH April the redoubt built by the citizenry "in the center of the parade/' and just plain folk and ordinary tradesmen asking for the latest news. All the while Debby must have shuddered to see the mud and filth collecting on her "best Room" figured carpeting. But as quickly as it had come up, the "storm blew over and the inhabitants dispersed themselves."163 The cordial relations with the governor and his party did not last much longer. By the time the Assembly adjourned at the end of March, violent disputes had broken out once more over the right, long contended for, to tax the proprietary estates. Concur- rently, there was much agitation for the advantages to be derived if the government were taken over by the king. By now, even Franklin was of the opinion that "all hopes of happiness under a Proprietary Government" were at an end.164 During the May session of the Assembly after Isaac Norris, the Speaker, became ill, Franklin was unanimously chosen to fill the chair for the few remaining days of that session, and served again during the September sitting.165 But the proposed change of govern- ment from proprietary to royal raised a storm of arguments. In the October elections, the proponents for change, led by Franklin and Joseph Galloway, were defeated in the city, and both men lost their seats. A majority in favor, however, were returned from the country. These proponents resolved, against strong opposition, to send a petition to the king for a change in government. On October 26, 1764, Franklin was appointed their agent to superintend its presentation in England.166 Three days later, on October 29, Franklin paid Adam Eckert £40 in full for the previous half-year's rent, due the fifteenth. Within two weeks he was en route for England and arrived there in "just 30 days from Land to Land."167 No further rent receipts were entered in his receipt books, even though they had not yet moved into the new house. Exactly when Debby moved remains undisclosed. Franklin, writing to her from London early in February, 1765, said he was "oblig'd to our Land- lord for his Civility," and would always remember it. He hoped 163 Ibid., 223; "Paxton Boys," Samuel Hazard, ed., Register of Pennsylvania, XII, 12. 164 Writings, IV, 224. 165 Ibid., 243; Votes, VII, 5611, 5613, 5645. 166 Ibid., 5690. 167 Franklin Receipt Book, 88, APS; Writings, IV, 271-272, 288. i960 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SLEPT HERE I73

RESIDENCES OF FRANKLIN 1. 12-18 South Second Street: Andrew Bradford, landlord, 1723 2. 318 Market Street: John Read, 1723-1724 3. 318 Market Street: Samuel Keimer, 1724 4. 39 South Front Street: Thomas Denham, 1726-1727 5. Lodgings undetermined, 1727-1728 6. 139 Market Street: Simon Edgell, 1728-1738 7. 131 Market Street: Robert Grace, 1738-1748 8. 200 North Second Street: Sarah Dillwyn, 1748-1750 9. 141 Market Street: Timothy Matlack, 1750-1751 10. 325 Market Street: John Wister, 1751-1755 11. Possibly 38 North Fourth Street: John Hughes, 1755—1756 12. Possibly 325 Market Street: John Wister, 1756-1761 13. 326 Market Street: Adam Eckert, 1761-1765 14. 318 Market Street: "Franklin Court," 1775-1776; 1785-1790 174 HANNAH BENNER ROACH April that by that time her "Trouble of Moving" was over, and that she was "compleatly settled/'168 The following May, Hugh Roberts wrote Franklin that his "little Family" was "not quite settled in the new House."169 On the basis of these two remarks it would seem that Debby did not move until late winter or the early spring of 1765, two years from the time Franklin undertook the building of his dwelling. Possibly Eckert, who either worked on the house, or furnished lumber for it—he was styling himself a board merchant by now—agreed to include the last rent in his final accounting. He was still receiving partial payments for material or labor in mid-May, 1765.170 With the completion of his new dwelling, by far the finest of his homes, the list of the houses in Philadelphia where Franklin lodged, where he experimented, theorized, and finally slept, comes to an end. Although the individual sites have been neglected, the ideologies, the resolutions, and institutions generated within their walls have become an integral part of history.

'Philadelphia HANNAH BENNER ROACH

168 Ibid., 359. 169 "Selections from the Correspondence Between Hugh Roberts and Benjamin Franklin," PMHB, XXXVIII (1914), 293. 170 Rhoads-Franklin Account Book, May 13, 1765, HSP.