[tps_title]1. Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790)[/tps_title]
Benjamin Franklin, the great statesman, scientist, political theorist and philosopher, is without doubt one of the most important inventors and public figures in American history.
The creator of the Franklin stove, bifocal glasses and the glass harmonica also believed in generously donating his genius and never patented his work.
He was a true Renaissance man, and possibly his greatest gift to civilization was the lightning rod, which led to a greater understanding of the nature of electricity.
Franklin was active as a Freemason from at least as early as 1731, when he was initiated into St. John’s Lodge in Philadelphia.
Appointed Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania in 1934, he was heavily involved in Masonic work his entire life, and edited and reprinted Scotland’s Rev. James Anderson’s Constitutions of the Free-Masons in the same year as his high appointment.
This was the first Masonic book in America and effectively linked the “Antient” and the “Modern” world.
Franklin, known as the “First American,” was instrumental in the creation of modern America and, in doing so, brought the secrets of Freemasonry to a new nation. Or at least to its chosen few.
