Comments: Benjamin Franklin's Epitaph

And this is really on his tombstone? Cool!

Posted by Jill at August 11, 2003 03:38 AM

Actually, it's not really on the tombstone, no. He wrote it much earlier in life and I don't know the reason why it wasn't used.

Posted by MGK at August 11, 2003 10:12 AM

He wrote that epitaph when he was 22, and specified later in his will - http://sln.fi.edu/franklin/family/lastwill.html - that:

"I wish to be buried by the side of my wife, if it may be, and that a marble stone, to be made by Chambers, six feet long, four feet wide, plain, with only a small moulding round the upper edge, and this inscription:

Benjamin And Deborah Franklin 178-

to be placed over us both."

Posted by nick at August 11, 2003 12:50 PM