Benjamin Drake Story

Destination Freedom. Listen. It's the Freedom Bell. My friends, this is Paul Revere. Paul is back from the shadows by the sound of the Freedom Bell to cry again a warning that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Destination Freedom is presented by a station WMAQ in the interest of human freedom of the world over. Paul Revere is the symbol of warning, ready to ride down the skies to shout an alarm. His destination now and forever... freedom.

I have a story, tell you. An echo of something Thomas Jefferson once said. And a reminder that the soldiers of freedom aren't always recruited from among the best people. This is a true story which happened close to 140 years ago in a town in New York state.

They say that in the old days a fellow rose through New York state with a surveying tool in his hand, a copy of the Bible in one pocket and a poem by a Greek poetry writer named Homer in the other.

And this surveyed men would name first a town from the Bible and then another one from this fulbert. That's how the town we're talking about came to be named Silo. Next town down the line is named Jerusalem. After a while when the town got bigger and people got the living together more, some of the folks got a hanker to run things for the rest, which they did. One of them

In the town of Silla was named Benjamin Drake. I own this town, body, bolts and wretches. What I say goes. I reckon the Silla moral society agrees with you there, Benjamin. The people who lived in Silla, Benjamin Drake, looked about eight feet tall.