When General Anthony Wayne in 1795 forever destroyed the power of the Indians of the Northwest, Girty sold his trading post and removed to Canada, where he settled upon a farm near Malden, on the Detroit River, the recipient of a British pension. Here he resided until the War of 1812 undisturbed, but almost blind. After the capture of the British fleet on Lake Erie, Girty followed the British in retreat and remained away from his home until the treaty of peace was signed, when he returned to his farm, where he died in the fall of 1819, aged seventy-four years. There have been efforts to make a hero of Girty, but without success. He was without one redeeming quality. He reveled in the very excess of malignity and above all in his hatred for his own countrymen. Such was the life and career of Simon Girty, the outlaw and renegade. ---------- Benjamin Franklin, Youngest Son of Seventeen Children, Born January 17, 1706 Benjamin Franklin, American statesman, philosopher and printer, was born in Boston January 17, 1706, youngest son of the seventeen children of Josiah and Abiah Folger Franklin. Born a subject of Queen Anne of England and on the same day receiving the baptismal name of Benjamin in the Old South Church, he continued for more than seventy of the eighty-four years of his life a subject of four successive British monarchs. During that period, neither Anne nor the three Georges, who succeeded her, had a subject of whom they had more reason to be proud nor one whom at his death their people generally supposed they had more reason to detest. Franklin learned the art of printing with his brother, but they disagreeing, Benjamin left Boston when seventeen years old, sought employment in New York, but, not succeeding, went to Philadelphia and there found success, and for much more than half a century was the greatest man in Pennsylvania. Franklin soon attracted the attention of Governor Keith, who, making him a promise of the Government printing, induced young Franklin to go to England to purchase printing materials. He was deceived and remained there eighteen months, working as a journeyman printer in London. He returned to Philadelphia late in 1726, an accomplished printer and a man of the world. In 1730 he had a printing establishment and newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette, and stationers’ shop of his own. Was married to Deborah Read, a young woman whose husband had absconded, and was already pressing upon public opinion with a powerful leverage. For many years he published an almanac under the assumed name of Richard Saunders. It became widely known as “Poor Richard’s Almanac,” and is still one of the marvels of modern literature.