Benjamin Franklin

In bustling Boston of the early 1700s, a large, lively Franklin family makes its home under the blue‑balled door of Milk Street. Young Benjamin, the youngest of seventeen siblings, grows up amid the clamor of ships, coffeehouses and a modest candle‑making shop. He devours his father’s sermons, then darts to the adventurous pages of Pilgrim’s Progress and the vivid biographies of Plutarch, showing a restless appetite for knowledge that outpaces his two years of formal schooling.

Guided by a father who welcomes the town’s thinkers to dinner, Benjamin learns the value of industry and honesty while experimenting with his own inventions—building a makeshift wharf, crafting wooden oars and even testing a kite‑assisted swim. Though the candle‑wick trade bores him, a brother’s new printing press sparks a fresh curiosity, hinting at the path that will soon transform his love of books into a lifelong vocation.