Benjamin Franklin.
Benjamin Franklin, one the founding fathers, was also an entrepreneur. He conducted some experiments with static electricity and found that something was being transferred between objects by rubbing them together. He identified the charge of an object that gained something as positive and that that lost something as negative.
He was wrong about the direction. Scientists later discovered that this was the electron. It moved from the positive to the negative object. The electron was given a negative charge because it was too late for us to alter our beliefs.