Joseph Breintnall

The books sent for to England have always come safe and without Damage; very few of the Books have been lost or carelessly defaced; a good agreement has for the most part subsisted in the Company, and all the Officers have proved faithful in their several Trusts, as far as hath yet been discovered; the Library has received Benefactions from several Gentlemen and well-wishers; and increases in its Reputation...I have presumed to make this Note without Direction, because I think it will not be disapproved of, and may prove useful.

[6]On May 5, 1746, after Breintnall's death, the directors of the Library Company, “took into Consideration, that Joseph Breintnall, late Secretary, had faithfully served the Company Yearly, without any adequate Recompence for the same, in Gratitude for which, they unanimously voted a Present of £15 to his Widow [Esther Parker] for the Use of his Family; and that his Son George shall have the free Use of Books in the Library during his Life.

"[7] In 1735 Joseph Breintnall was assigned to the position of "High Sheriff for the City and County of Philadelphia," bound under the authority of George II of Great Britain.

While some sources state that Benjamin Franklin invented Nature printing as a way of deterring counterfeiters from copying the currency he was contracted to print, it is more accurate to say that Franklin applied the results of Joseph Breintnall's early attempts to render, in scientific detail, the diversity of American botanical life.

While the idea of making inked impressions of leaves was a popular "craft" activity of middle-class women at the time, Breintnall is credited with applying the practice in a scientific setting.

Later, Franklin and Breintnall worked to take plaster casts of various plant leaves in order to produce copper plates of the specimens.

[10] In the year of Breintnall's death, his wife, Esther Parker, donated two volumes of leaf prints compiled by her husband to the Library Company.

Breintnall worked with Franklin to verify the results of an experiment designed to ascertain the relationship between color and energy absorption from the sun.

In 1825, James Madison, who mistakenly thought that the poem was written by Benjamin Franklin, wrote that the "Tribute To John Bartram," "merits preservation, as well on account of its author, as of its moral improvement on the original ode.