This sculpture of Benjamin Franklin is located in front of old Boston City Hall. The 1856 work by Richard Saltonstall Greenough is listed on Smithsonian Inventory (
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"Sculpture: bronze; Base: marble and granite.
Dimensions:
Sculpture: approx. 8 ft. 4 in. x 2 ft. 2 in. x 2 ft. 2 in.; Base: approx. 9 ft. 3 in. x 7 ft. 6 in. x 7 ft. 6 in.
Inscription:
(Inscribed on statue proper right:) RICHARD S. GREENOUGH FECIT BOSTON 1855 (Inscribed on statue proper left in script:) Ames Mfg. Co. Founders Chicopee Mass. (Inscribed front plaque left side:) R. S. Greenough (Inscribed front plaque right side:) Ames Mfg. Co. Found/Chicopee Mass. (Inscribed back plaque:) Eripuil Coelo Fulmen Sceptrumque Tyrannis (Inscribed back plaque lower right:) R.S. Greenough fecit 1857 (Inscribed back plaque lower left:) Ames Mfg. Co. founders/Chicopee Mass. signed Founder's mark appears.
Description:
A full-length standing figure of Franklin on square pedestal with four relief panels showing scenes from Franklin's life. He is wearing a colonial suit and holds his tricorn hat in his proper left hand. The relief panels depict Franklin as a young boy learning to print; at the signing of the Declaration of Independence; drawing electricity from the clouds; and signing the Treaty of Paris in 1873."
and Wikipedia (
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"Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 [O.S. January 6, 1705][1] – April 17, 1790) was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A renowned polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. As an inventor, he is known for the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove, among other inventions. He facilitated many civic organizations, including Philadelphia's fire department and a university.
Franklin earned the title of "The First American" for his early and indefatigable campaigning for colonial unity, first as an author and spokesman in London for several colonies. As the first United States Ambassador to France, he exemplified the emerging American nation. Franklin was foundational in defining the American ethos as a marriage of the practical values of thrift, hard work, education, community spirit, self-governing institutions, and opposition to authoritarianism both political and religious, with the scientific and tolerant values of the Enlightenment. In the words of historian Henry Steele Commager, "In a Franklin could be merged the virtues of Puritanism without its defects, the illumination of the Enlightenment without its heat." To Walter Isaacson, this makes Franklin "the most accomplished American of his age and the most influential in inventing the type of society America would become."
Franklin, always proud of his working class roots, became a successful newspaper editor and printer in Philadelphia, the leading city in the colonies. With two partners he published the Pennsylvania Chronicle, a newspaper that was known for its revolutionary sentiments and criticisms of the British policies. He became wealthy publishing Poor Richard's Almanack and The Pennsylvania Gazette. Franklin was also the printer of books for the Moravians of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (1742 on). Franklin's printed Moravian books (printed in German) are preserved, and can be viewed, at the Moravian Archives located in Bethlehem. Franklin visited Bethlehem many times and stayed at the Moravian Sun Inn...
Coming of revolution
In 1763, soon after Franklin returned to Pennsylvania from England for the first time, the western frontier was engulfed in a bitter war known as Pontiac's Rebellion. The Paxton Boys, a group of settlers convinced that the Pennsylvania government was not doing enough to protect them from American Indian raids, murdered a group of peaceful Susquehannock Indians and marched on Philadelphia. Franklin helped to organize a local militia to defend the capital against the mob. He met with the Paxton leaders and persuaded them to disperse. Franklin wrote a scathing attack against the racial prejudice of the Paxton Boys. "If an Indian injures me," he asked, "does it follow that I may revenge that Injury on all Indians?"
He provided an early response to British surveillance through his own network of counter-surveillance and manipulation. "He waged a public relations campaign, secured secret aid, played a role in privateering expeditions, and churned out effective and inflammatory propaganda."
Declaration of Independence
About 50 men, most of them seated, are in a large meeting room. Most are focused on the five men standing in the center of the room. The tallest of the five is laying a document on a table.
John Trumbull depicts the Committee of Five presenting their work to the Congress.
By the time Franklin arrived in Philadelphia on May 5, 1775, after his second mission to Great Britain, the American Revolution had begun – with fighting between colonials and British at Lexington and Concord. The New England militia had trapped the main British army in Boston. The Pennsylvania Assembly unanimously chose Franklin as their delegate to the Second Continental Congress. In June 1776, he was appointed a member of the Committee of Five that drafted the Declaration of Independence. Although he was temporarily disabled by gout and unable to attend most meetings of the Committee, Franklin made several "small but important" changes to the draft sent to him by Thomas Jefferson.
At the signing, he is quoted as having replied to a comment by Hancock that they must all hang together: "Yes, we must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.'"