Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/447

 FRANKLIN 435 casks, 7 of furniture, 1 of pig iron, 2 of pig lead, 185 of wine, 1 railroad repair shop, 2 pork-packing establishments, 1 planing, 13 saw, and 11 flour mills, 1 box factory, and 8 brick kilns. Capital, Union. XXI. An E. county of Kansas, intersected by the Osage river ; area, 576 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 10,385. The surface is undulating and the soil fertile. The Leavenworth, Lawrence, and Galveston railroad passes through the county. The chief productions in 1870 were 44,471 bushels of wheat, 618,840 of Indian corn, 181 T 515 of oats, 54,618 of potatoes, 17,644 tons of hay, 185,640 Ibs. of butter, and 20,498 of wool. There were 3,706 horses, 3,818 milch cows, 7,108 other cattle, 5,182 sheep, and 6,636 swine; 2 manu- factories of boots and shoes, 1 of brooms, 3 of saddlery and harness, 1 flour and 8 saw mills. Capital, Ottawa. XXII. A S. county of Ne- braska, bordering on Kansas, intersected by Republican river ; area, 576 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 26. FRANKLIN. I. A borough and the capital of Venango co., Pennsylvania, on French creek or Venango river, just above its entrance into the Alleghany, 52 m. S. by E. of Erie, and 64 m. N. of Pittsburgh; pop. in 1870, 3,908. Small steamers run to Pittsburgh, and railroad communication is furnished by the Franklin branch of the Atlantic and Great Western, the Franklin division of the Lake Shore and Michi- r Southern, and the Alleghany Valley line. >wes its prosperity mainly to the trade in petroleum, of which there are many wells in the vicinity. It has two weekly newspapers, a national bank, several oil refineries, a num- ber of schools, and six or seven churches. II. A town and the capital of Williamson co., Tennessee, on the Harpeth river, 18 m. S. of Nashville ; pop. in 1870, 1,552. A severe bat- tle was fought here, Nov. 30, 1864, between the Union forces under Gen. Schofield and the confederates under Gen. Hood, brought on by the latter to prevent the former from reach- ing Nashville. After a determined attack the confederates were repulsed. The confederate loss is stated at from 4,500 to 6,000 ; that of the Union army at 2,326. The result was that Nashville remained in the possession of the Unionists during the remainder of the war. III. A town and the capital of St. Mary parish, Louisiana, port of entry of the district of Teche, situated on the right bank of Bayou Teche, 65 m. by water from the gulf of Mexico, and 88 m. W. by S. of New Orleans; pop. in 1870, 1,265, of whom 503 were colored. It is the shipping point for large quantities of cotton, sugar, and corn produced in the neighborhood, and is accessible by large steamboats. In 1872 there were belonging to the port 52 vessels with an aggregate tonnage of 3,353. IV. A city and the capital of Johnson co., Indiana, situated on Young's creek, and on the Cincin- nati and Mar tins ville, and the Jefferson ville, Madison, and Indianopolis railroads, 20 m. S. by E. of Indianapolis ; pop. in 1870, 2,707. It is the seat of Franklin college (Baptist), found- ed in 1835, which in 1872 had 8 professors and instructors, 38 students, and a library of 1,000 volumes. It also contains two national banks, two weekly newspapers, ten public schools, and several churches. FRANKLIN, Benjamin, an American philoso- pher and statesman, born in Boston, Jan. 17, 1706, died in Philadelphia, April 17, 1790. He was the youngest, except two daughters, of a family of 17 children. His father, a noncon- formist, emigrated to New England in 1682 in search of religious freedom ; his mother, his fa- ther's second wife, was Abiah Folger, daughter of a distinguished colonist, Peter Folger, author of a poem in defence of liberty of conscience. Franklin's father, originally a dyer, became in Boston a tallow chandler and soap boiler. Hav- ing bound out his elder sons apprentices to trades, he designed the youngest "as a tithe of his sons " for the church. The child was placed at school at the age of eight, and mani- fested an aptitude for study ; but narrowed cir- cumstances compelled his early withdrawal, and at the age of ten he was employed in cutting wicks and attending to the shop. This was so distasteful to Benjamin that he began to talk of going to sea, to prevent which his father bound him apprentice to his brother James, a printer. The boy, always fond of reading, now sat up nights engaged in study. His earliest favorites were Defoe's "Essay on Projects," Mather's "Essays to do Good," Buriyan's works, Plutarch, and Burton's historical collections. He conceived also a fancy for poetry, and wrote ballads, the "Lighthouse Tragedy," and the "Pirate Teach, or Blackbeard." These were published, but his father looked discour- agingly upon this proceeding, and "thus," humorously says Franklin in his autobiography, "I escaped being a poet." Meeting with an odd volume of the "Spectator," he was so much delighted that he contrived ingenious methods of mastering the style and acquiring an ability in composition which he considered a principal means of his subsequent advance- ment. At the age of 16 he mastered arithme- tic without assistance, and studied navigation. He read also at this period " Locke on the Hu- man Understanding," the "Port Royal Logic," and a translation of Xenophon's "Memorabilia." He had read Shaftesbury and Collins, and be- coming a skeptic, applied himself to skilful devices of argumentation gathered from the "Memorabilia," practised them as exercises in conversation, and often defeated antagonists whose cause and understanding were, as he afterward confessed, deserving of the victory. When about 16 years of age he met with a book by "one Try on," recommending vegeta- ble diet, which he adopted ; it proved econom- ical, and he gained thus an additional fund for purchasing books. Meantime he wrote a paper in a disguised hand for the " New Eng- land Courant," published by his brother; it was printed anonymously, met with approba-