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Super Bowl Betting: Benjamin Franklin And John Adams Style

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Sitting on his perch above the American Philosophical Society in Old City, Benjamin Franklin sports an Eagles hat and flag.

"We think that Franklin, if he were alive today, would be rooting on the Eagles," APS librarian Patrick Spero told Eyewitness News.

Spero says while Franklin was born in Boston, he had his sites on Philadelphia from a young age.

"He found Boston really far too restrictive and he left for Philadelphia where he made his home," Spero said.

Inside the society is a vault, and inside is page after page of Franklin's personal notes and correspondence. To make things more interesting for the game, Spero and his team at the APS made a little bet with the team at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston. If the Eagles win, the team in Boston will send Franklin's personal manuscripts outlining his experiments with electricity. They will go on display in Philadelphia.

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"We will have anything by Franklin. We already have 70 percent of his papers but why not more?" APS executive director Robert Hauser told Eyewitness News.

If the Patriots win, the group in Philadelphia will send over John Adams' personal copy of a book he wrote called "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government." Adams even wrote a letter to Franklin, and sent it with the book.

"He said, 'Ben, would you contribute this to the American Philosophical Society's library?'" Spero told Eyewitness News.

Franklin did and that book has been at the APS for 230 years. It could leave temporarily if the Patriots win, but the APS team here is planning on an Eagles win. They look forward to displaying Franklin's notes on electricity.

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