Dancing Statues, Throwing Pennies and Pinching Bottoms: The Mischievous Ghost of Benjamin Franklin

 The home of the American Philosophical Society, known as Philosophical Hall, is located in Center City Philadelphia mere yards from Independence Hall. It has stood as an integral part of Old City Philadelphia for well over 200 years.  

Philosophical Hall is now a part of Independence National Historic Park and in addition to still being home to the offices of the American Philosophical Society it is also visited by thousands of tourists and researchers with an interest in American history each year.

Founded in 1743 the American Philosophical Society was, and continues to be, an organization dedicated to promoting learning in the sciences and humanities through research, discussion, community outreach and most importantly reading.  The father and founding member, some would even say the creator of the American Philosophical Society itself, was none other than the inventor of bifocals, and the man whose portrait graces our one-hundred dollar bill, Benjamin Franklin.

Considered early America’s most erudite and learned man, in the 1780’s funding from Ben Franklin allowed for the construction of the American Philosophical Library, headquarters of the American Philosophical Society, the very same building now known as Philosophical Hall.  

When construction was completed in 1785 the American Philosophical Society Library was one of the only free public lending libraries in all of the young United States of America.

Above the entrance to the American Philosophical Library, perched atop a white stone pedestal, sits a life size statue of the man whose mind and money made the library possible, Benjamin Franklin.

Franklin’s statue is clothed in a toga and he is standing with his arms outstretched as if beckoning all who pass by to come inside the walls of the house of learning that he helped to create.

But over the past nearly two and a half centuries the library of Philosophical Hall, even Franklin’s beckoning statue itself have gained a much more sinister and haunted reputation than that of the shining beacons of learning that they were originally intended to be.

In 1884 a young cleaning woman, working late in the Philosophical library, reported being bum rushed by a sprinting man and knocked backwards into a bookshelf.  Others inside the building who had heard the commotion rushed to where she lay among a stack of books and as they helped her to her feet, the woman reported that she had been knocked over by a man whose likeness, and 18th century style dress, matched that of none other than Benjamin Franklin himself.

As recently as 2016 eyewitnesses taking tours of the American Philosophical Society have reported sighting the bespectacled apparition of an older man that matches Franklin in appearance floating along the hallways and peaking out from in between the library’s labyrinthine series of bookcases.

Ladies especially beware, as the ghost of Franklin is said to goose the most attractive librarians and visitors to the American Philosophical Society.  It is somehow fitting that the ghost of Ben Franklin, who in life was known for his prodigious learning and equally voracious appetite for the attentions of the fairer sex, would haunt a library looking for the most attractive female bottoms to pinch.

But possibly the most  preposterous thing about the haunted American Philosophical Society is that the statue of Ben Franklin dressed in a toga that adorns the outside of the building is said to periodically get down off its pedestal and start dancing! (https://phillyghosts.com/the-american-philosophical-library)

Inside the American Philosophical Library

In Haunted Philadelphia: Famous Phantoms, Sinister Sites and Lingering Legends published in 2015 by local historian Darcy Oordt she states that, “Shortly after Franklin died people reported seeing the statue walking the streets of Philadelphia…others reported seeing the statue dancing or skipping along…there are even claims that it visits local pubs like City Tavern!”

There is a legend in Philadelphia that every Easter Sunday, the statue of Ben Franklin in front of the American Philosophical Society comes to life and dances a jig in front of the doors to the institution of learning that he helped to found.

Why Easter Sunday?  Well, apparently there is no specific reason why the statue of Ben Franklin comes to life each Easter Sunday, at least not that I could find.  Maybe it is simply that America’s preeminent man of science is trying to tell us something from beyond the grave about the scientific and spiritual nature of the afterlife.

Now, it might be easy to dismiss such claims of sightings of a dancing ghost of Benjamin Franklin as the mere late night imaginings of someone who has indeed had too much to drink at City Tavern themselves, but before we dismiss the dancing ghost of Benjamin Franklin as mere foolishness, let’s consider how active a ghost the ghost of old Ben truly is around historic Philadelphia.

Christ Church Burial Ground, founded in 1719, was Philadelphia’s first graveyard and is situated on two acres of land that back in the 18th century were considered the outskirts of town.  Today, Christ Church Burial Ground which is still an active cemetery, is at the heart of old city Philadelphia.

Christ Church Burial Ground

Perhaps the most famous gravesite in Christ Church Burial Ground is that of Ben Franklin himself who, despite being a notorious philanderer, is buried next to his faithful wife in the northwest corner of the cemetery.

Traditionally, it is customary for all who walk by Franklin’s grave, since his tombstone is visible through a purposefully built opening in the cemetery’s brick wall, to toss a penny onto his tombstone.  This is due, paradoxically, to the fact that Franklin is famous for the quote, “A penny saved is a penny earned which has been wrongly attributed to him and his Poor Richard’s Almanack for over 250 years!

What Franklin did actually publish in Poor Richard’s was the much less mellifluous sounding old English proverb, “A penny saved is a penny got.”  It’s no wonder that us Americans took it into our own hands to change around the wording in that stilted old English proverb.   I believe Franklin himself would be proud!

But as many witnesses have reported through the years, apparently the ghost of old Ben isn’t particularly interested in saving all of those pennies after all.  Those who walk by the Christ Church Burial Ground late at night say that the ghost of Ben Franklin will hover over his own grave and toss pennies back at unsuspecting passersby!

Right on up to the present day many people, especially women, have reported being mysteriously struck by pennies, sometimes multiple times and within seconds, without ever seeing where any of this flying currency happened to come from!

And once again, in and around Christ Church Burial Ground, just as within the walls of the American Philosophical Library, many women through the years, dating all the way back to the 1790’s have reported being touched rather inappropriately by mysterious unseen hands, and then catching a fleeting glimpse of a man similar in appearance to Benjamin Franklin dressed in 18th century garb fleeing the scene and disappearing out of sight within seconds.

The Tomb of Ben Franklin

Perhaps, all of these sightings of dancing statues, flying pennies, bespectacled old ghosts and butt-grabbing dirty old men dressed in riding breeches and tri-cornered hats is merely the result of overactive imaginations.  

Perhaps, it’s all nonsense; nothing more than the results of people having too much to drink on a night out partying in the City of Brotherly Love.

It could be that reports of Ben Franklin’s ghost haunting a library, a cemetery or anywhere else in the old city of Philadelphia is merely a form of folklore, a sort of urban legend dating back to the 18th century that has gone out of control and taken on a life of its own (no pun intended) among visitors and local residents alike…

…or maybe, the ghost of Old Ben likes to dance around the city he loved and flirt with the ladies he loved just as much even in death as he did in life…