Benjamin Franklin

Date of Birth: January 17, 1706

Date of Death: April 17, 1790

State: Pennsylvania (Born in Massachusetts)

Age at Convention: 81

Schooling: Self Taught, Honorary L.L.D. Edinburgh 1759

Benjamin Franklin had many occupations before being part of the Constitutional Convention which included Inventor, Real Estate and Land Speculation, Lending and Investments and publisher. He also had prior expirence in politic's including Governor of Pennsylvania 1785-1787, Clerk of Colonial Legislature 1736-1751, Member of Colonial Legislature 1751-1764, Deputy Post Master of Philadelphia 1735-1753, Deputy Post Master General of Colonies 1753-1774, Represented Pennsylvania at Albany Congress 1754, Negotiated Treaty of Paris 1783, Commissioner to France 1776-1785, Continental Congress 1775-1776, Signer of the Declaration of Independence 1776.

Contribution to Convention: In 1787, he was a Pennsylvania delegate to the Constitutional Convention. (The 81-year-old Franklin was the convention’s oldest delegate.) At the end of the convention, in September 1787, he urged his fellow delegates to support the heavily debated new document. The U.S. Constitution was ratified by the required nine states in June 1788, and George Washington (1732-99) was inaugurated as America’s first president in April 1789. Franklin died a year later, at age 84, on April 17, 1790, in Philadelphia.