Revell House
Revell House
213 Wood St.
Map / Directions to the Revell House
Map / Directions to all Burlington Revolutionary War Sites
The Revell House is maintained by the Colonial Burlington Foundation, which holds the annual Wood Street Fair.
The house is open for tours during the fair. See www.woodstreetfair.com for more information
Benjamin Franklin was one of the central figures of the Revolutionary War era. [1] He signed both the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. He was a member of the Continental Congress. His diplomacy with France during the war helped to ensure French support to the America side in the war, in the form of financial loans and military troops, both of which played a crucial role in the American victory.
But it should be remembered that when the Revolutionary War began, Franklin was almost seventy years old and had already lived a full and multifaceted life. He was successful in the fields of publishing, writing, business, politics, and diplomacy. He also made important contributions to the scientific understanding of electricity with his famous kite experiment, and he invented the lightning rod, the Franklin stove and bifocals.
Throughout his long and remarkable life, Franklin went many places and did many things. And as a teenager, he took a fifty-mile walk across New Jersey which led him through Burlington, where he is believed to have stopped at the Revell House.
Benjamin Franklin was born in 1706 in Boston. At the age of twelve, he was apprenticed to his older brother Joseph in his print shop. Young Benjamin learned the printing trade, and also began his writing career for Joseph's newspaper, The Courant. However, Joseph mistreated Benjamin, and physically beat him. In 1723, when Benjamin was seventeen, he decided to run away from his brother and his apprenticeship.
He took a ship from Boston to New York City, where he hoped to find work as a printer. In New York City, he met the owner of a print shop who told him that he had no need for another worker at that time, but advised him to head to Philadelphia to find work.
Franklin traveled by boat to Perth Amboy. He then proceeded to walk fifty miles to Burlington, to take a boat to Philadelphia, located across the Delaware River. While in Burlington, he bought gingerbread and later ate dinner at a house which local tradition places as the Revell House.
Franklin described stopping at Burlington in his Autobiography: [2]
"I proceeded the next day, and got in the evening to an inn within eight or ten miles of Burlington, kept by one Dr. Brown... At his house I lay that night, and the next morning reached Burlington, but had the mortification to find that the regular boats were gone a little before my coming, and no other expected to go before Tuesday, this being Saturday; wherefore I returned to an old woman in the town, of whom I had bought gingerbread to eat on the water, and asked her advice. She invited me to lodge at her house till a passage by water should offer; and being tired with my foot traveling; I accepted the invitation. She, understanding I was a printer, would have had me stay at that town and follow my business, being ignorant of the stock necessary to begin with. She was very hospitable gave me a dinner of ox-cheek with great good will, accepting only of a pot of ale in return; and I thought myself fixed till Tuesday should come. However, walking in the evening by the side of the river, a boat came by which I found was going towards Philadelphia, with several people in her. They took me in, and, as there was no wind, we rowed all the way; and about midnight, not having yet seen the city, some of the company were confident we must have passed it, and would row no farther; the others knew not where we were; so we put toward the shore, got into a creek, landed near an old fence, with the rails of which we made a fire, the night being cold, in October, and there we remained till daylight. Then one of the company knew the place to be Cooper's Creek, a little above Philadelphia, which we saw as soon as we got out of the creek, and arrived there about eight or nine o clock on the Sunday morning, and landed at the Market Street wharf."
When Franklin did arrive in Philadelphia, he began his very successful career as a printer. Five years later, Franklin returned to Burlington for three months as part of a printing job to print paper money for New Jersey, as described in the 206 High Street Site entry below.
