He did too! Philadelphia, June 1752:
"But, dreading the ridicule which too commonly attends unsuccessful experiments in science, he communicated his intended experiment to nobody but his son who assisted him in raising the kite.... At length just as he was beginning to despair of his contrivance, he observed some loose threads of the hempen string to stand erect, and to avoid one another, just as if they had been suspended on a common conductor. Struck with this promising appearance, he immediately presented his knuckle to the key and, let the reader judge of the exquisite pleasure he must have felt at that moment, the discovery was complete. He percieved a very evident electric spark."
Sir Joseph Priestley writing in 1767
Alan
