(Benjamin Franklin) | A bequest to Boston, his birthplace

(Benjamin Franklin)

Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg. Document signed (“PMuhlenberg: V.P.”) as Vice President of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 25 April 1788, on a half sheet of laid paper (170 x 208 mm), being an order to Treasurer David Rittenhouse to pay Benjamin Franklin £750 as his half-year’s salary as President of the state, countersigned by Comptroller General John Nicholson, neat slit cancellations, endorsed on the verso “Received June 8th, 1790 of Christian Tobegas State Treasurer Payment in full of the within order. By order of Henry Hill Esq, one of the Executors of his Excellency B. Franklin deceased,” the endorsement signed by William Hill Wells, Hill’s son-in-law; fold separations and cancellation slits neatly reinforced. Black cloth portfolio.

In a July 1788 codicil to his will, Franklin stated “It having long been a fixed political opinion of mine, that in a democratical state there ought to be no offices of profit, for the reasons I had given in an article of my drawing in our constitution, it was my intention when I accepted the office of President, to devote the appointed salary to some public uses. … To this end, I devote two thousand pounds sterling, of which I give one thousand thereof to the inhabitants of the town of Boston, in Massachusetts, and the other thousand to the inhabitants of the city of Philadelphia, in trust, to and for the uses, intents, and purposes hereinafter mentioned and declared.” Franklin elaborated on his particular gratitude to the Bay State: “I was born in Boston, New England, and owe my first instructions in literature to the free grammar-schools established there. I have, therefore, already considered these schools in my will. But I am also under obligations to the State of Massachusetts for having, unasked, appointed me formerly their agent in England, with a handsome salary, which continued some years; and although I accidentally lost in their service, by transmitting Governor Hutchinson’s letters, much more than the amount of what they gave me, I do not think that ought in the least to diminish my gratitude.”

The present document is one of three pay orders that Franklin left uncashed as president of Pennsylvania: state vice president Muhlenberg here directs the state treasurer, David Rittenhouse, to “Pay to his Excellency Benjamin Franklin Esquire or order the sum of seven hundred and fifty pounds being one half year's salary due to him as President of the State.”

This check was used by Franklin’s estate to provide the bulk of his bequest to Boston, which was distributed in March 1791. Franklin left both Boston and Philadelphia detailed instructions on how the two cities were to handle the monies, which were to be held in trust for two hundred years and loaned “at five per cent. per annum, to such young married artificers, under the age of twenty-five years, as have served an apprenticeship in the said town, and faithfully fulfilled the duties required in their indentures, so as to obtain a good moral character from at least two respectable citizens. …” After the first century had passed, the cities could withdraw a limited amount of capital, but both trusts would sunset when the second century was reached. The two gifts generated millions of dollars for both cities, with the funds being used principally to support educational endeavors.