Editing Benjamin Franklin (section)

===Boston===
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| image1 = Benjamin Franklin Birthplace 2.JPG
| caption1 = An 1881 illustration of Franklin's birthplace on [[Milk Street, Boston|Milk Street]] in [[Boston]]
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| caption2 = A May 2008 photograph of Franklin's birthplace in Boston, commemorated with a [[bust (sculpture)|bust]] of Franklin atop the building's second-floor façade
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Franklin was born on [[Milk Street, Boston|Milk Street]] in [[Boston]], [[Province of Massachusetts Bay]] on January 17, 1706,{{refn|group=Note|name=birthdate| Contemporary records, which used the Julian calendar and the [[New Year#Annunciation Style|Annunciation Style]] of enumerating years, recorded his birth as January 6, 1705.<ref>{{cite book|editor1-last=Mulford|editor1-first=Carla|title=The Cambridge Companion to Benjamin Franklin|date=2009|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|page=xiv|isbn=9781139828123|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hOTroomqzQQC&pg=PR14}}</ref>{{sfn|Wood|2005|p=17}}}} and [[Infant baptism|baptized]] at the [[Old South Meeting House]] in Boston. As a child growing up along the [[Charles River]], Franklin recalled that he was "generally the leader among the boys."{{sfn|Isaacson|2003|p=16}}

Franklin's father wanted him to attend school with the clergy but only had enough money to send him to school for two years. He attended [[Boston Latin School]] but did not graduate; he continued his education through voracious reading. Although "his parents talked of the church as a career"<ref name="autobio">{{cite book |last= Franklin |first= Benjamin |title= Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=qW4VAAAAYAAJ |access-date=February 1, 2011 |series= Macmillan's pocket English and American classics |orig-year= 1771 |year= 1901 |publisher=Macmillan |location= New York |page= vi |chapter= Introduction|isbn= 9780758302939 }}<!-- Note: the introduction of this edition is the source for this quote; please do not change the edition without verifying the quote remains sourced. --></ref> for Franklin, his schooling ended when he was ten. He worked for his father for a time, and at 12 he became an [[apprenticeship|apprentice]] to his brother James, a printer, who taught him the printing trade. When Benjamin was 15, James founded ''[[The New-England Courant]]'', which was the third newspaper founded in Boston.<ref name="Bernhard 2007 p. 11">{{cite book | last=Bernhard | first=J. | title=Porcupine, Picayune, & Post: How Newspapers Get Their Names | publisher=University of Missouri Press | series=EBL-Schweitzer | year=2007 | isbn=978-0-8262-6601-9 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_oO5fWi6dikC&pg=PA11 | access-date=June 1, 2023 | page=11}}</ref>

When denied the chance to write a letter to the paper for publication, Franklin adopted the pseudonym of "[[Silence Dogood]]," a middle-aged widow. Mrs. Dogood's letters were published and became a subject of conversation around town. Neither James nor the ''Courant''{{'s}} readers were aware of the ruse, and James was unhappy with Benjamin when he discovered the popular correspondent was his younger brother. Franklin was an advocate of free speech from an early age. When his brother was jailed for three weeks in 1722 for publishing material unflattering to [[Samuel Shute|the governor]], young Franklin took over the newspaper and had Mrs. Dogood proclaim, quoting ''[[Cato's Letters]]'', "Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech."{{sfn|Isaacson|2003|p=32}} Franklin left his apprenticeship without his brother's permission, and in so doing became a fugitive.<ref name="Seelye Selby 2018 p. 394">{{cite book | last1=Seelye | first1=J.E. | last2=Selby | first2=S. | title=Shaping North America: From Exploration to the American Revolution [3 volumes] | publisher=ABC-CLIO | year=2018 | isbn=978-1-4408-3669-5 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YgVnDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA394 | access-date=June 1, 2023 | page=394}}</ref>