On October 6, 1723, seventeen-year-old Benjamin Franklin arrived at Philadelphia’s Market Street wharf exhausted, hungry, and nearly penniless. He had run away from an unhappy apprenticeship under his older brother, James, in Boston; traveled by water to New York; crossed New Jersey; and finally reached Philadelphia by boat down the Delaware River. Franklin later recalled that he was dirty and tired, with his pockets “stuffed out” with shirts and stockings, and with only a Dutch dollar and some small change remaining.
Looking for something to eat, Franklin followed a boy carrying bread to a bakery on Second Street. After unsuccessfully asking for a biscuit and then a threepenny loaf, he told the baker to give him three pennies’ worth of whatever was available. The baker handed him three “great puffy rolls.” With no room in his pockets, Franklin tucked one roll beneath each arm and ate the third as he walked up Market Street—an image that invites a playful modern comparison to Philadelphia’s enduring devotion to portable food.
Along the way, Franklin passed the home of the Read family. Deborah Read, who would later become his wife, saw the awkward-looking young runaway at the door. Franklin himself remembered that he made “a most awkward ridiculous Appearance” on that first encounter.
The episode became one of the most memorable passages in Franklin’s Autobiography because of its contrast between his modest arrival and his later prominence. In Philadelphia, Franklin built a career as a printer and writer, supported civic institutions, pursued scientific inquiry, and eventually served as a diplomat and Founding Father. His arrival was not the start of instant success, but the beginning of decades of work, relationships, ambition, and public service.
