of age. In 1784 Franklin records,[1] "this library afforded me the means of improvement by constant study, for which I set apart an hour or two each day; and thus repaired in some degree the loss of the learned education my father once intended for me." He was looking backward nigh fourscore years to his native city, and the "learned education" he might have attained to on the banks of the Charles River. With what great satisfaction he must have contemplated the great institution for learning he had launched eighteen years after his Library scheme had been consummated.
It was in 1731 that he took part in the formation of St. John's Lodge in Philadelphia, so far as known, the earliest established Masonic Lodge in America. In this interesting association he had the fellowship of his co-trustees William Allen, Thomas Hopkinson, James Hamilton, Dr. Thomas Bond, William Plumsted, Philip Syng and Dr. Cadwalader.[2] Franklin was on a Committee appointed "to consider of the present State of the Lodge and of the properest Methods to improve it," and the Committee's report of 5 June, 1732, is in his handwriting. He was Junior Grand Warden of Pennsylvania that year, was Grand Master in 1734 and again in 1749, and Deputy Grand Master from 1750 to 1755.
At the close of the year following Franklin first published his Poor Richard's Almanac, which was continued about twenty-five years. This, he tells us, he "endeavoured to make both entertaining and useful, and it accordingly came to be in such demand, that I reaped considerable profit from it; vending annually near ten thousand."[3] It was announced in the Pennsylvania Gazette of 19 December, 1732, and such was the eager-
- ↑ Bigelow, i. 170
- ↑ It was in the latter's letter to Henry Bell of Lancaster of 17 November, 1754, we find him saying: "As you well know I was one of the originators of the first Masonic Lodge in Philadelphia. A party of us used to meet at the Tree Tavern in Water Street, and sometimes opened a Lodge there. Once, in the fall of 1750, we formed a design of obtaining a Charter for a regular Lodge, and made application to the Grand Lodge of England for one, but before receiving it, we heard that Daniel Coxe, of New Jersey, had been appointed by that Grand Lodge as Provincial Master of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. We, therefore, made application to him, and our request was granted:" vide The Keystone, 15 October, 1887.
- ↑ Bigelow, i. 192
