Benjamin Franklin; Self-Revealed, Volume 2 (of 2): A Biographical and Critical Study Based Mainly on his own WritingsBruce, Wiliam Cabell
History
Benjamin Franklin; Self-Revealed, Volume 2 (of 2): A Biographical and Critical Study Based Mainly on his own Writings
Bruce, Wiliam Cabell
Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790
By 1733 Franklin was sufficiently established in business to branch out
still more. That year he sent one of his journeymen, Thomas Whitemarsh, to
Charleston, South Carolina, where a printer was needed, under an agreement
of partnership which was the prototype of most of the subsequent articles
of copartnership formed by him with other printers under similar
conditions; that is to say, he furnished the printing outfit, paid one
third of the expenses, and received one third of the profits. The history
of this partner gave Franklin an opportunity to moralize a little in the
_Autobiography_ upon the importance of a knowledge of accounts rather than
of music or dancing as a part of female education. The Carolina printer was
a man of education and honest, but ignorant of accounts, and, though he
made occasional remittances, Franklin could never get any account from him,
nor any satisfactory statement of the condition of the partnership
business. On his death, however, his widow, who had been born and bred in
Holland, not only sent Franklin as clear a statement as was possible of the
past transactions of the firm, but subsequently rendered him an exact
account every quarter with the utmost punctuality, and, besides, managed
the business with such success that she reared a family of children
decently, and, upon the expiration of the copartnership, purchased the
outfit from Franklin, and turned it over to her son.
The success of the Carolina partnership encouraged Franklin to form
partnerships with other journeymen of his, and by 1743 he had opened three
printing-offices in three different colonies, and proposed to open a
fourth, if he could find a suitable person to take charge of it. Others
were opened by him later. Among the persons besides Whitemarsh, established
by him at different times as printers, under one arrangement or another
with himself, were Peter Timothy in South Carolina, Smith and Benjamin
Mecom in Antigua, James Parker in New York, his brother in Rhode Island,
Hall and Miller and Samuel Holland at Lancaster, and William Daniell at
Kingston, Jamaica. Speaking of his partners in the _Autobiography_, he says
of them:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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