Happy Birthday, Ben & more forgotten words

The great American statesman, publisher, inventor (and he that graces our C note), Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) would be celebrating his 300th Birthday today, if he were still alive.
Franklin, (born in Boston, Massachusetts) was the first real American Renaissance man. He is best remembered for his contributions to American independence and for his wise, often humorously ironic sayings, such as, "All would live long, but none would be old." An invenerate inventor, he devised bifocal glasses, the odometer and swim fins. He helped introduce to America the catheter tube, a windsurfing apparatus, the public library, and the notion of matching gifts in charity fund-raising. He also charted the paths of storms over North America and discovered the course of the Gulf Stream. As a publisher, he printed America's first political cartoon and some of its earliest editorials. At age 22, he composed this cheerful epitaph for himself (which he revised a number of times): "The body of B. Franklin, Printer (like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out and stript of its lettering and gilding) lies here, food for worms. But the work shall not be lost; for it will (as he believ'd) appear once more in a new and more elegant edition revised and corrected by the Author."

NOVITIOUS - newly invented.
- Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828.

JEJUNELY - hungrily; [from] jejune, wanting, empty, vacant, hungry, dry, barren; from Latin jejunus [fasting]. Jejuneness, poverty, barrenness; particularly want of interesting matter.
-Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon, c.1850

SECOND-WEDDING-DAY - A reception given by newly married couples on their return from the honeymoon.
-John Farmer's Americanisms Old and New, 1889

Wedding Bell Blahs
On January 11, 1787, the London World reported this bizarre tale: "Two brothers of the same name, Stott, who live at Wookey, being equally captivated with the charms of a female of Wells, daughter of a Mr. Lovell, a mason, paid their addresses to her. The elder brother, percieving that she manifested a partiality for the younger, declared that unless she would accepthis hand he would hang himself. The tender-hearted nymph, to prevent so melancholy a catastrophe, promised to gratify his wishes - and they accordingly married se'nnight. But the parties soon found themselves so much deceived in each other that on Saturday last the husband actually sold his bride for half a crown to his brother, to whom he, that evening, delivered her... in the presence of a large party at a public-house, where purchase money contributed towards the expense of a convivial meeting."