Edgar Wilson Nye, known to his readers as "Bill Nye," was born in Shirley, Maine, August 25, 1850. He removed with his parents to Wisconsin in 1854. As a mere school boy, he loved to say those things which afforded amusement to his associates and his family. In an article in Collier's for April 10, 1915,[3] his mother tells the following anecdote concerning him when a boy working on the Wisconsin farm:

The two boys, Edgar (Bill) and his brother Frank had been working in the field, but were separated on their return to the house at noon time. They met again at the pump, when the following conversation ensued:

"Edgar looked at Frank as if surprised, and inquired: 'Your name Nye?'

'Yes,' replied Frank, with perfect gravity in order to lead his brother on.

'That's funny; my name's Nye, too,' observed Edgar. 'Where were you born?'

'In Maine,' answered Frank.

'I was born in Maine myself,' said Edgar. 'I wouldn't doubt at all if we were some relation. Got any brothers?'

'Yes, I have two brothers.'

'Well, well, this is growing interesting. I've got two brothers myself. I'll bet if the thing were all traced out, there would be some family relationship found. Are your brothers older or younger than you?'

'I have one brother older and one younger,' replied Frank.

'Oh, well, then we can't be any relation after all,' declared Edgar with a look of disappointment; 'my brothers are both older.'"

While a young man he went to the then territory of Wyoming, where he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1876. He later returned to River Falls, Wisconsin, where he engaged in newspaper work. Some years later he traveled with James Whitcomb Riley and gave entertainments in which mirth was the essential feature. He later removed from Wisconsin and made his home in New York City. He died at Asheville, N. C., Feb. 22, 1896.

His writings appeared under the following titles:

Bill Nye and Boomerang, in 1881; Forty Liars, in 1883; Remarks, in 1886; Baled Hay and Fun, Wit and Humor, with J. W. Riley, in 1889; Comic History of the United States, in 1894; Comic History of England, in 1896.

To illustrate his humor due to the mingling of fact and nonsense, we reproduce here a portion of his chapter upon Franklin as published in his Comic History of the United States.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

It is considered advisable by the historian at this time to say a word regarding Dr. Franklin, our fellow-townsman, and a journalist who was the Charles A. Dana of his time. Franklin's memory will remain green when the names of millionaires of to-day are forgotten.

But let us proceed to more fully work out the life and labors of this remarkable man.

Benjamin Franklin, formerly of Boston, came very near being an only child. If seventeen children had not come to bless the home of Benjamin's parents, they would have been childless. Think of getting up in the morning and picking out your shoes and stockings from among seventeen pairs of them!

And yet Benjamin Franklin never murmured or repined. He decided to go to sea, and to avoid this he was apprenticed to his brother James, who was a printer.

His paper was called the New England Courant. It was edited jointly by James and Benjamin Franklin, and was started to supply a long-felt want.

Benjamin edited it a part of the time, and James a part of the time. The idea of having two editors was not for the purpose of giving volume to the editorial page, but it was necessary for one to run the paper while the other was in jail.

In those days you could not sass the king, and then, when the king came in the office the next day and stopped his paper and took out his ad, put it off on 'our informant' and go right along with the paper. You had to go to jail, while your subscribers wondered why their paper did not come, and the paste soured in the tin dippers in the sanctum, and the circus passed by on the other side.

How many of us today, fellow-journalists, would be willing to stay in jail while the lawn festival and the kangaroo came and went? Who of all our company would go to a prison-cell for the cause of freedom while a double-column ad of sixteen aggregated circuses, and eleven congresses of ferocious beasts, fierce and fragrant from their native lair, went by us?

At the age of seventeen Ben got disgusted with his brother, and went to Philadelphia and New York, where he got a chance to 'sub' for a few weeks and then got a regular job.

Franklin was a good printer and finally got to be a foreman. He made an excellent foreman. He knew just how to conduct himself as a foreman so that strangers would think he owned the paper.

In 1730, at the age of twenty-four, Franklin married, and established the Pennsylvania Gazette. He was then regarded as a great man, and almost every one took his paper.

Franklin grew to be a great journalist, and spelled hard words with great fluency. He never tried to be a humorist in any of his newspaper work, and everybody respected him.

Along about 1746 he began to study the habits and construction of lightning, and inserted a local in his paper in which he said that he would be obliged to any of his readers who might notice any new odd specimens of lightning, if they would send them to the Gazette office for examination.

Every time there was a thunderstorm Frank would tell the foreman to edit the paper, and, armed with a string and an old doorkey, he would go out on the hills and get enough lightning for a mess.

In 1753 Franklin was made postmaster of the colonies. He made a good Postmaster-General, and people say there were fewer mistakes in distributing their mail then than there have ever been since. If a man mailed a letter in those days, Ben Franklin saw that it went to where it was addressed.

Franklin frequently went over to England in those days, partly on business and partly to shock the king. He liked to go to the castle with his breeches tucked in his boots, figuratively speaking, and attract a great deal of attention. Franklin never put on any frills, but he was not afraid of crowned heads.

He did his best to prevent the Revolutionary War, but he couldn't do it. Patrick Henry had said that war was inevitable, and had given it permission to come, and it came.

He also went to Paris, and got acquainted with a few crowned heads there. They thought a good deal of him in Paris, and offered him a corner lot if he would build there and start a paper. They also offered him the county printing; but he said, no, he would have to go back to America or his wife might get uneasy about him. Franklin wrote 'Poor Richard's Almanac' in 1732 to 1757, and it was republished in England.

Dr. Franklin entered Philadelphia eating a loaf of bread and carrying a loaf under each arm, passing beneath the window of the girl whom he afterward gave his hand in marriage.