Shortly after the New Jersey job was
finished, these materials arrived in Philadelphia, and Franklin
immediately opened his own printing office. His partner "was, however,
no compositor, a poor pressman, and seldom sober." The office prospered,
and in July, 1730, when Franklin was twenty-four years old, the
partnership was dissolved, and Franklin was at the head of a
well-established and profitable printing business. This business was the
foundation of Franklin's fortune; and better foundation no man could
desire. His industry was extraordinary. Contrary to the current opinion,
Dr. Baird of St. Andrews testified that the new printing office would
succeed, "for the industry of that Franklin," he said, "is superior to
anything I ever saw of the kind; I see him still at work when I go home
from the club, and he is at work again before the neighbors are out of
bed." No trade rules or customs limited or levied toll on his
productiveness. He speedily became by far the most successful printer
in all the colonies, and in twenty years was able to retire from active
business with a competency.
One would, however, get a wrong impression of Franklin's career as a
printer, if he failed to observe that from his boyhood Franklin
constantly used his connection with a printing office to facilitate his
remarkable work as an author, editor, and publisher. Even while he was
an apprentice to his brother James he succeeded in getting issued from
his brother's press ballads and newspaper articles of which he was the
anonymous author.
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