🦅 Am. Legend: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN:
THE BOY FROM BOSTON,
THE LIGHT OF PHILADELPHIA
He began in Boston,
a candle-maker’s son on Milk Street,
ink-fingered, book-hungry,
a boy with only two years of school
and a lifetime of questions.
Seventeen children in a crowded house,
but one mind burning hotter
than any tallow flame his father poured.
He copied essays by candlelight,
studied by instinct,
learned by hunger.
Boston taught him discipline.
Boston taught him grit.
Boston taught him:
if knowledge won’t come to you—
you chase it.
And so he ran.
South. Alone.
A runaway with nothing but wit and will,
crossing colonies like a whispered rumor
until Philadelphia rose before him
like a promise.
There, the storm found him.
Clouds rolled over the Delaware,
a sky of pewter and prophecy,
and through their lightning seam
he stepped reborn—
Benjamin Franklin,
storm-crowned thinker,
the boy from Boston now
the architect of a new city’s soul.
In one hand: the Silk Kite of ’52,
reborn with astral threads.
In the other: the Key of Inquiry,
glowing with curious fire.
Philadelphia paused.
Market Street held its breath.
Independence Hall hummed like an old violin
remembering its maker.
Franklin raised the Key
and the city lit like a living circuit—
lightning rods singing,
windows shimmering,
the very air sparking with invention.
“Curiosity is lightning,” he said.
“Imagination is the strike.”
And both cities—Boston his beginning,
Philadelphia his becoming—
glowed in the storm’s golden breath.
He brought no thunder.
He brought possibility—
the spark that builds nations
from grit, wonder,
and an unbreakable will to learn.
In 1775, the Continental Congress made him the first Postmaster General of the United States.
The 1775 American flag had:
13 red-and-white stripes (for the 13 colonies)
The British Union Jack in the canton
Remember — in 1775, the colonies were in open rebellion,
but had NOT declared independence yet.
No stars
No blue canton
No “Betsy Ross” circle
No fully independent American national flag
The famous 13-star “Betsy Ross” design wasn’t adopted until June 14, 1777.
1776 = Independence declared
1783 = Independence secured
