Ben Franklin's Philadelphia by Tom Huntington

Author:Tom Huntington
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Globe Pequot
Published: 2019-09-15T16:00:00+00:00

The university has a third statue, one of young Ben striding into Philadelphia in 1723, at Weightman Hall on Thirty-third Street, near Locust. The work of R. Tait McKenzie, the school’s first professor of physical education, it was a gift from the class of 1904.

Not content with starting libraries, academies, and learned societies, Franklin also became involved in the creation of the first hospital in the colonies. In 1750, he received a visit from Dr. Thomas Bond, a friend and one of the American Philosophical Society’s original members. Bond had studied medicine in Paris and London and had been trying to raise money to found a hospital in Philadelphia, with little success. Finally he turned to his friend Franklin, who had the reputation as the go-to man for things of this sort. “I am often ask’d by those to whom I propose Subscribing, Have you consulted Franklin upon this Business?” Bond told him. “And when I tell them that I have not, (supposing it rather out of your Line) they do not subscribe but say they will consider it.”

Pennsylvania Hospital

800 Spruce St. ★ (800) 789-7366

pennhealth.com/pahosp/

Pennsylvania Hospital was the first hospital in the North American colonies. The original Pine Building contains the cornerstone, protected under plastic, with the inscription that Franklin wrote. The moat around the building is where hospital attendants once exercised mentally ill patients. This is still a working—and very busy—hospital; guided or self-guided tours are currently unavailable. Visit pennmedicine.org for updated information.

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