East Coast Trip: 2011

Benjamin Franklin Tomb

"No other town burying its great man, ever buried more of itself than Philadelphia with Franklin," wrote Carl Van Doren in his biography of Franklin.

Franklin himself had composed the black-bordered Pennsylvania Gazette which announced his death. Dr. Jones, Franklin's physician, informed the readers of Franklin's final illness. He had been suffering from empyema, pus filling in his lung brought on by attacks of pleurisy many years earlier. His temperature was high. This made breathing laborious, and he almost suffocated. After several days of breathing woes, the pain went away for a day, upon which he left his bed and asked that it be made properly so that he might have a dignified death. His daughter, Sally, told him that she hoped he would live many years more. "I hope not," he replied.
An abscess in Franklin's lung burst and he passed into a coma. He died on April 17, 1790, with his grandsons William Temple and Bennie at his side. Benjamin Franklin was 84 years old.
On April 21, the funeral procession gathered at the State House. Leading the cortege was the clergy of Philadelphia. Though Franklin was not a regular churchgoer by any means, he had aided the churches by raising funds to help their construction. His coffin was carried by the citizenry of Philadelphia. Dignitaries surrounded the Pall including Revolutionary Era Philadelphia mayor Samuel Powell, astronomer David Rittenhouse, and several members of Pennsylvania's Supreme Executive Council. Judges and current Philadelphia politicians were also in the mix.

They were followed by the printers of the city and their apprentices. Franklin always considered himself a leather apron man, a mechanic, a printer. "Keep they Trade, and thy Trade will keep Thee."
Then came members of the American Philosophical Society, which was co-founded by Franklin in the 1740's. Next came members of the College of Physicians. Franklin was a founding member of the Academy, which became the College of Philadelphia, which had created the College of Physicians, the first medical school in the country. The Society of Cincinnati found its way into the procession, though Franklin had derided their philosophy of making honor hereditary.
On the cortege wound, composed of citizens of all stripes, headed toward the Christ Church burial ground. It is estimated that 20,000 mourners gathered for the funeral. Bells of the city church's were muffled and tolled. When Franklin had arrived in Philadelphia's port on October 6, 1723, he was a broke runaway. Now the ships in the very same harbor Franklin had arrived in flew their flags at half-mast for the man who had enriched the world. Franklin was buried beside his wife Deborah, who had preceded him in death by 25 years. His beloved son Francis Folger, who had died at age 4 from smallpox, was also in the family plot.
As a young man in 1728, Franklin had composed his own mock epitaph which read:

The Body of
B. Franklin
Printer;
Like the Cover of an old Book,
Its Contents torn out,
And stript of its Lettering and Gilding,
Lies here, Food for Worms.
But the Work shall not be whlly lost:
For it will, as he believ'd, appear once more,
In a new & more perfect Edition,
Corrected and Amended
By the Author.
He was born on January 6, 1706.
Died 17

His gravestone would simply read:

BENJAMIN And DEBORAH	FRANKLIN
1790

America mourned.
James Madison moved that the House of Representatives, then sitting in New York, wear mourning for a month. France mourned. In June, Count Mirabeau suggested that the French National Assembly should wear mourning as well. His suggestion also provides a fitting eulogy.

Would it not become us, gentlemen, to join in this religious act, to bear a part in this homage, rendered, in the face of the world, both to the rights of man and to the philosopher who has most contributed to extend their sway over the whole earth? Antiquity would have raised altars to this mighty genius, who, to the advantage of mankind, compassing in his mind the heavens and the earth, was able to restrain alike thunderbolts and tyrants. Europe, enlightened and free, owes at lest a token of remembrance and regret to one of the greatest men who have ever been engaged in the service of philosophy and liberty. I propose that it be decreed that the National Assembly, during three days shall wear mourning for Benjamin Franklin.

Today thousands of tourists annually still come to pay their respect to Benjamin Franklin. His grave is visible through an iron gate at the southeast corner of 5th and Arch Streets. Pennies dot his tombstone, as a local tradition claims that such a practice will bring the penny-tosser luck.
One must wonder what the author of Poor Richard's Almanack might think of such a practice though. On the one hand, a man famous for the line, "A penny saved, is a penny earned," would not like throwing money away; on the other hand surely Franklin would recognize, it is only "common cents" that we would look to him for inspiration.

Betsy Ross

In June 1776, brave Betsy was a widow struggling to run her own upholstery business. Upholsterers in colonial America not only worked on furniture but did all manner of sewing work, which for some included making flags. According to Betsy, General Washington showed her a rough design of the flag that included a six-pointed star. Betsy, a standout with the scissors, demonstrated how to cut a five-pointed star in a single snip. Impressed, the committee entrusted Betsy with making our first flag.-

Christ Church
Christ Church's congregation included 15 signers of the Declaration of Independence. Revolutionary War leaders who attended Christ Church include George Washington, Robert Morris, Benjamin Franklin and Betsy Ross (after she had been read out of the Quaker meeting house to which she belonged for marrying John Ross, son of an assistant rector at Christ Church). Brass plaques mark the pews where these individuals once sat. At the convening of the First Continental Congress in September 1774, Rector Jacob Duché was summoned to Carpenters' Hall to lead the opening prayers. During the war, the Reverend William White (1748–1836), rector of Christ Church, served as Chaplain to both the Continental Congress and the United States Senate.

-Idependence

Independence Hall was built between 1732 and 1753, designed by Edmund Woolley and Andrew Hamilton, and built by Woolley. Its construction was commissioned by the Pennsylvania colonial legislature which paid for construction as funds were available, so it was finished piecemeal.^[5] It was initially inhabited by the colonial government of Pennsylvania as its State House, from 1732 to 1799.
The hall is a red brick building designed in the Georgian style. It consists of a central building with belltower and steeple, attached to two smaller wings via arcaded hyphens. The highest point to the tip of the steeple spire is 168 ft, 7 1/4 inches above the ground. The two wings were demolished in 1811-1812, though these have since been reconstructed.
Two smaller buildings adjoin the wings of Independence Hall: Old City Hall to the east, and Congress Hall to the west. These three buildings are together on a city block known as Independence Square, along with Philosophical Hall, the original home of the American Philosophical Society. Since its construction in the mid-20th century, to the north has been Independence Mall, which includes the current home of the Liberty Bell.

-Quaker church

--the Constitution Center

-Liberty Bell
The bell now called the Liberty Bell was cast in the Whitechapel Foundry in the East End of London and sent to the building currently known as Independence Hall, then the Pennsylvania State House, in 1752. It was an impressive looking object, 12 feet in circumference around the lip with a 44-pound clapper. Inscribed at the top was part of a Biblical verse from Leviticus, "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof."
Unfortunately, the clapper cracked the bell on its first use. A couple of local artisans, John Pass and John Stow, recast the bell twice, once adding more copper to make it less brittle and then adding silver to sweeten its tone. No one was quite satisfied, but it was put in the tower of the State House anyway.
From 1753 until 1777, the bell, despite its crack, rang mostly to call the Pennsylvania Assembly to order. But by the 1770s, the bell tower had started rotting and some felt ringing the bell might cause the tower to topple. Thus, the bell was probably not rung at all to announce the signing of the Declaration of Independence, or even to call people to hear its first public reading on July 8, 1776. Still, officials considered it valuable enough to move, with 22 other large Philadelphia bells, to Allentown in September 1777, so that invading British forces would not confiscate it. It was returned to the State House in June 1778.
While it remains unknown what exactly caused the first crack in the Liberty Bell, presumably every subsequent use caused further damage. In February 1846, repairmen attempted to fix the bell with the stop drilling method, a technique in which the edges of a crack are filed down to prevent them from rubbing against one another and then joined by rivets. Unfortunately, in a subsequent ringing for Washington’s Birthday later that month, the upper end of the crack grew and officials resolved to never ring the bell again.
By that time, though, it had hung around long enough to gain a reputation. Because of its inscription, abolitionists started using it as a symbol, first calling it the Liberty Bell in the Anti-Slavery Record in the mid-1830s. By 1838, enough abolitionist literature had been distributed that people stopped calling it the State House bell and forever made it the Liberty Bell.

-US Mint
Produces over 80000 coins each day

-Rocky Balboa
The 72 stone steps before the entrance of the Philadelphia Museum of Art in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania have become known as the "Rocky Steps" as a result of their appearance in the triple-Oscar-winning film Rocky and four of its sequels, Rocky II, III, V and Rocky Balboa, in which the eponymous character runs up the steps to the song "Gonna Fly Now". Tourists often mimic Rocky's famous climb, a metaphor for an underdog or an everyman rising to a challenge. A bronze statue of Rocky was briefly situated at the top of the steps for the filming of Rocky III. This statue, now located at the bottom right of the steps, is a popular photo opportunity for visitors. .

Philadelphia City Hall is the house of government for the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At 167 m (548 ft), including the statue, it is the world's second-tallest masonry building, only .5 m (1 ft 8 in) shorter than Mole Antonelliana in Turin. The weight of the building is borne by granite and brick walls up to 22 feet (6.7 m) thick, rather than steel; the principal exterior materials are limestone, granite and marble

-LOVE statue
A "Love" sculpture, designed by Robert Indiana, was first placed in the plaza in 1976 as part of the United States' Bicentennial celebration. It was removed in 1978, but the sculpture was missed and the chairman of Philadelphia Art Commission, F. Eugene Dixon, Jr., bought the sculpture and permanently placed it in the plaza, in 1978