On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin wrote to the Lancaster County Committee on behalf of the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety regarding public arms in the County:

We have considered your respectful answer to our application for the public Arms in the County of Lancaster, and are fully satisfied with the reasons you assign for retaining them for the use of the poor Associators in said County, and have only to acknowledge your Zeal in the Public Cause and to desire you will send to us, the names of the persons in whose hands the Arms are left, that it may be known where to apply for them on any Emergency, and that the public property may be taken care of.

Source: “The Pennsylvania Committee of Safety to the Lancaster County Committee, 17 November 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-22-02-0157. [Original source: The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 22, March 23, 1775, through October 27, 1776, ed. William B. Willcox. New Haven and London:: Yale University Press, 1982, pp. 265–266.]