Benjamin Franklin, the nation’s first postmaster general and the first to appear on a U. S. stamp, was truly a man for all seasons.

Franklin holds the distinction, along with George Washington, as the most popular individuals to be commemorated on U. S. postage stamps (more than 100 since 1847).

His connection to the U. S. Postal Service under the Continental Congress in 1775 earned him a cherished place in American history.

In 2006, on the 300th anniversary of his birth, the Postal Service issued a special edition of four stamps featuring Franklin’s individual efforts as postmaster, printer, scientist and statesman. The stamp honoring his work as a printer includes a copy of Pennsylvania Gazette from 1729, the front cover of the 1733 edition of “Poor Richards Almanac” and a currency note printed by Franklin in 1760. (His last will and testament reads, “I Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia am proud to be considered a printer.”)

Throughout his life, Franklin remained curious about natural phenomena such as electricity, meteorology and magnetism. The design of the second stamp includes a page from his 1769 volume about electricity, as well as a drawing of his “three wheeled clock.”

The stamp honoring Franklin as a statesman shows a detail from Trumbull’s painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence as well as Franklin’s “Join or Die” cartoon, considered the first American political cartoon. The fourth stamp, honoring his work as postmaster, shows a Colonial- era postmark and postal cover on a late 18th century painting of Franklin by Charles Wilson Beale.

One of his last public acts was writing an antislavery treatise in 1790. He died at the age of 84.