The Franklin Historical Museum will celebrate the town's 238th birthday on Sunday March 6th with cake and coffee in the museum library. Stop by for a slice of cake, have a look around and learn a little bit more about your town's history.
Did you know that our town was originally to be called Exeter? In the original draft of the town's charter, the name throughout the document was Exeter. But on the day that the town was to be incorporated, our founding fathers with familiar names such as Fisher, Metcalf, Lethbridge, Whiting, Hawes and Boyd were inspired to cross out the name Exeter and claim the name Franklin. But why the change?
In Blakes' History of Franklin, written at the time of the town's centennial, Blake speculated: "It will be remembered that Benjamin Franklin, with two others, had been sent to France immediately upon the Declaration of Independence in 1776 to negotiate a treaty of recognition and alliance.' The news finally arrived on the shores of this newly formed country that "on the 6th of January Louis XVI entered into a treaty of amity and commerce with the colonies."
The news was welcomed and celebrated and as a tribute to the popular statesman and diplomat the gentlemen from the 'Westerly Precinct of Wrentham' promptly changed the name on the application of incorporation to Franklin. Many other States have since honored Benjamin Franklin in the same way, but we are of course, the first.
Join us this weekend and be among the first to experience our new monthly feature, the Item of the Month! Each month we will spotlight a different item from our collection that we hope will be interesting, intriguing and will encourage our visitors to learn something new. The March Item of the Month is an 18th century 'calash'. Not sure what it is? Come on in and find out.
The museum is open Saturdays 10:00AM-1:00PM and Sundays 1:00PM-4:00PM. We are located at 80 West Central Street and we are handicap accessible.
 |
| The Franklin Historical Museum ready to party! |
For more about the Historical Museum visit them on the web at
http://franklinhistoricalmuseum.org/
or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/FHM02038
**In case you are interested, wikipedia lists 50 communities (cities and towns) called Franklin in the USA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_named_for_Benjamin_Franklin
