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Ben Franklin called Philadelphia home,
but it was in Boston that he spent the first seventeen years
of his life, and the city had a strong influence in shaping
his future career and many of his beliefs. It was in Boston
that Franklin first learned the printer’s trade while apprenticed
to his older brother and there that he was exposed to the teachings
of the influential Puritan preacher, Cotton Mather. Ben ran
away from Boston at the age of 17 and returned to the city only
to visit. Franklin still felt strong ties to Boston, however,
and left a bequest to the city in his will. Money from that
fund was used to build Boston’s Franklin Institute, a trade
school founded one hundred years after Franklin’s death.
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copyright 2002 Twin Cities Public Television, Inc. All rights reserved.
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