Dear Family,

I am writing from Philadelphia Pennsylvania and am now an apprentice for a man named Ben Franklin. The other night him and I sat down to talk (he wanted to know me since he would be living and working with me for a while) about our lives. I told him about my two brothers and sister and of course you two, my parents. Then I asked him about his life.

He started out talking about his childhood. He was was born in 1706 and is one of seventeen children. Ben then talked about his formal education, and I think he is brilliant for the length of time he spent in school. He went to grammar school when he was eight years old. Then his formal education ended by the time he was ten years old. Ben’s parents pulled him out of school so he could work at his family’s candle shop. Future education came from his own reading, conversations and debates with friends. When he was seventeen he went to Philadelphia and started working at the first Philadelphia newspaper, the “American Mercury”.

From your son and brother,

David

Dear Family,

The last time I wrote to you I had been home alone with Ben and he did not mention anything about a family. But when I got finished writing to you his wife and kids got home from the general store. I was able to meet them and Ben told me all about them.

He first talked about his wife who is a very nice woman. Her name is Deborah Read Rogers. They got married in 1730. She runs the local general store while Ben runs the printing press I am currently apprenticing at. I also got to meet their two kids, William and Sarah also known as Sally. But then Mrs. Rogers began to cry and I asked her what she was crying about. I found out that she and Ben had a son named Francis Folger who died of smallpox at the age of four.

I really feel welcome here in Ben Franklin’s house. I hope you guys are doing all right in the Carolinas.

Love,

Your son David

Dear Family,

Yesterday was the end of my first week working as Ben’s apprentice in the print shop. I saw a lot of stuff and learned a lot of things. I learned what we print and how we print it. The main thing we print every day is the “Pennsylvania Gazette”. We also print the “Poor Richard’s Almanac” annually.