Portage sentinel. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1845-1854, 1853-03-30
Franl1iin--The Home of his BOyhOod.


/ There are few places yet left in Boston o
universal interest. Do you see thatshouse on the
corner of Union and Hanover streets, with a-gil
ball protruding from its corner, diagonally into
the street 1t has no architectural pretentions tc
arrest a passer-by. It is plain brick house, o
three stories, with small windows, close together
and exceedingly small panes of glass in them, the
walls of dingy yellow. Yet it is house swarm
ing in associations, interesting to well nurturee
minds throughout the civilized world Read the
name upon the bell, and you get an inkling oi
my meaning g-"Josias Franklin, 1882 Yes
that is the very roof under which Benjamin Frank.
lin grew up. He was not born there, but his ia.
ther removed there when he was but six months
old, 30 that all his recollections of home must
have been connected with those walls. The side
of the house on Union street remains as it was in
the days of Franklin's boyhood; but that ON Han.
over street has been shamefully treated. Nearly
the whole Of the front has been cut out to make
room for two monstrously dsproportioned show.
windows And this house, so full, as l have just
said, of associations, is fuller yet of bonnets :!
Yes, by the head of the prophet, of bonnets. Il
is a bonnet warehouse, and from the inordinate
windows aforesaid, bonnets of all hues and shapes
ogle you with sde-long glances, or else stare you
out of codntenance, while mountain piles of band
boxes tower 70 the ceiling of the upper story, elo-
quent like faith, of things unseen. Heaven for
bid should say anything in derogation of bonnets
any more than of the fair heads that wear them
but would that they had another repository.
1t was my good fortune to go over this house.
before it had undergone this metamorsis. 1t was
occupied, in part at least, some eight or ten years
ago, by colored man, of the name of Stewart, a
dealer in old clothes, who thought of buying the
premises, and wanted my advice about it. glad
ly availedmyself of the opportunity to view them.
The interior of the house was then, l should
Judge, in the same condition that it was when the
worthy old soap boiler, and that sturdy rebel-in
youth as in age-his world-famous son, lived
there. There were the very rooms in which the
child franklin played, the very stairs up and down
which he romped, the very window seats on which
he stood to look out into the street. The shop on
the street was unquestionaby the place where he
used to cut wicks for the candles, and fill the
moulds, and wait upon the customers pleased
myself in imagining which room it was in which
the father sat, patriarch-like at his table, sur
rounded by his thirteen children, all of whom
sgrew up TO years of maturity, and were married.
And you may be sure did not fail to take7a peep
into the cellar, where poor Richard, in his infant
lie economy of time, proposed to his father that
ba should nraco ovar tho xuhn1o harrol IF hoof
they were putting down in the lump, instead o
over each peace in detail, as it came to the table.
A proposition which inclined the good brother of
the Old South Church to fear that his youngest
hope was given over to reprobate mind, was but
little better than one of the wicked. -E
AS would have given trife to know which of
the chambers it was that was Franklin's own,
where he educated himself, as it were, by stealth.
Where he used to read Bunyan's works, in sepa-
rate little volumes, and Barton's Historical collec-
tions,-ssmall Chapman's books, and cheap; forty
volumes in all-and Plutrarch's Lives, not to men
ton sa book of De Foes called an Essay on Pro-
iects,' and fDr. Mather's called an Essay to do
Good and where too, his lamp, Or more proba-
bly, his candies end-was "oft seen at midnight
hour, as he sat up the greatest part of the night
devouring the books which his friend, the book
sellers apprentice, used to lend him over night,
out of the shop, to be returned the next morning.
How the rogue must have enjoyed them! Seldom
has literary pleasure been relished with such gus
to as by that hungry boy.
It will not be many years before this monument
of the most celebrated man that Boston, not to say
America, ever produced, will be demolished, and
the place which knows it, will know it no more,
unless something be done to save it. 1t will be a
burning shame and lasting disgrace to Boston,
with all its pretentions to lberality and its aec-
tatiens of reverence for her great men, to suffer
the most historical of its houses to be destroyed
when the rise of real estate in that neighborhood
shall seal its doom. 1t is shame that it has
beea left long to take the chances of business.
It should have been bought years ago, and placed
in the hands of the Historical Society, or some
other permanent body, in trust, to be preserved
forever in its original condition. 1t is not too late
to restore it to something like its first estate, and
to save it from utter destruction. If it be not
done, it will be a source of shame and sorrow when
it is too late.
The house in which Franklin was born has been
destroyed within this century. That house stood
n Milk street,a little below the Old South Church
on the other side of the way, and the spot is mark
ed by 'sFurniture Warehouse five stories high
which forms fitting pendant to the Bonnet Ware
house in Hanover street. The printing Office of
James Franklin, where Franklin served his ap-
premiership, where he used to put his anonymous
communications under the door, where he used to
study when the rest were gone to dinner, and
where he,used sometimes to get fogging from
his brother, was in Queen, now Court street,
nearly opposite the Court House, on the corner OF
Franklin Avenue, which, if not mistaken, de-