User:Eanhello/sandbox

Life and work
Breintnall was a copyist and a merchant who opened a public house called "The Hen and Chickens". He was married under the care of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in 1723. His observations of the aurora borealis and his detailed account of being bitten by a rattlesnake circulated within the Royal Society in London through his correspondence with the Quaker botanist and Fellow of the Royal Society, Peter Collinson. Breintnall also experimented in printing techniques, especially that of Nature printing. His name appears several times in the records of Philadelphia Monthly Meeting of Friends. Breintnall was sheriff of Philadelphia from 1735–1738. He died in 1746 and left no will.

In his Autobiography Benjamin Franklin, writes that Breintnall was, a copyer of deeds for the scriveners, a good-natur’d, friendly, middle-ag’d man, a great lover of poetry, reading all he could meet with, and writing some that was tolerable; very ingenious in many little Nicknackeries, and of sensible Conversation.