Franklin Street
From Worcester Activist wiki
Also BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND PARK ST.
Benjamin Russell, an apprentice on the Massachusetts Spy, looked up one day to see a distinguished visitor-Dr. Benjamin Franklin.
Dr. Franklin was on some public business in this part of the country. He stayed in Worcester two or three days. Much of his time was spent in the printing office.
The printers clustered about while Dr. Franklin removed his coat and took the press apart. Only one half of a page could be printed at a time. When Dr. Franklin got through and dusted off his knees, the whole side of a sheet could be printed in one operation.
Ben Russell was 13 during the Revolution. He later became famous as editor of the Boston Sentinel. On June 1, 1834, he recalled the Franklin incident and told it to C. C. Baldwin, who scrawled it in his diary.
“He gave the men some very useful hints about working the press,” said Russell of the famous printer, inventor, statesman, author, moralist, historian and philosopher.
Franklin street, first named in 1845, and Franklin square are named in honor of the doctor.
Before it was Franklin street, it was South street, because it lay on the south side of the Common. Later it became Park street near City Hall.
The Spy’s first press can be seen today in the American Antiquarian Society.
It is the one which Isaiah Thomas, founder and editor, moved to Worcester from Boston.
The core of this article comes from A History of Your City Streets.
