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Historian Michael Hart, author of “Ranking the Most Influential Persons in History,” refers to this man as “the most versatile genius in all of history, with notable accomplishments in an even wider range of fields than the renowned Leonardo da Vinci.” This Founding Father had highly successful careers in at least five separate area of human endeavor: business, science, literature, politics and public promotor and organizer. In the last category, for example, he was the founder of the first hospital in Philadelphia, the first fire company in the colonies, the first municipal police department, the first circulating library in the colonies, the first fire insurance company, the first scientific society and we have not even scratched the surface as to Benjamin Franklin’s remarkable accomplishments. Franklin had a lifelong love of swimming that began during his childhood in Boston. With only two years of formal education, Franklin, at age 10, invented his own wooden swimming fins, which look remarkably similar to today’s rubber swim fins. Franklin taught himself to swim by studying the illustrations in a French book by M. de Thevenot, the “father of swimming instructors,” entitled, “The Art of Swimming and Advice for Bathing.” Franklin wrote that as a child, he had “Been ever delighted with this exercise (swimming), had studied and practiced all Thevenot’s motions and positions, added some on my own, aiming at the graceful and easy, as well as the useful.” At age 20, while in London, Franklin swam a distance of 3 1/2 miles, performing feats both upon and under water and “pleased those who were watching.” He made flotation devices to help others to swim. Word soon spread in London about the young American swimming instructor. Demand for his services was so high that Franklin contemplated opening a swimming school. He also considered touring Europe, giving swimming lessons to pay the cost of the trip.
Franklin’s purpose in London soon ended and he returned to Philadelphia, where he proposed that “schools have swimming programs for their students.” According to historian John Walburn, Franklin continued swimming throughout his lifetime. At age 77, he taught his grandson, Benny Bache, how to swim. Benny fondly noted in his diary, “My grandfather is not like other people.” Franklin, one of the world’s greatest scientists for his discoveries in electricity, was the only person to have signed the most important documents in American history; the Albany Plan of Union, the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Alliance with France ending the Revolutionary War, the Peace Treaty with England and the Constitution. In 1968, Ben Franklin was honored for his swimming contributions by his admission into the International Swimming Hall of Fame; the only founding father so honored by a sport Hall of Fame.
