No one ever mentions Benjamin Franklin's son

Love stories like this!

I gotta call BS on this story.

The American Revolution was circa 1776.

Yet Ben Franklin's boy was involved in a massacre 100 YEARS LATER. (1872)

The 'boy' was over 100 years old when the massacre occurred.

No way...
Wow

That reads like what is happ3ning now.


I see the boats stuck at sea like the setting up of the boston tea party

History is repeating

Me too! I had to put this one all together myself. I see a historic sign, I get questions, I have to google, and then I get to subject my family to an afternoon of historic sightseeing :)

I couldn't believe that Ben Franklin had a son who was not only a loyalist, but who organized raids or robbers all over New Jersey from prison in Connecticut and from Exile in New York (which was still under control of the British when he was released in a prisoner exchange in 1778).

Even more interesting me than THAT ...

No one knows who William Franklin's mother was.

William Franklin's origins are SHADY.

We know what Ben Franklin ate for breakfast, how he took his naps, where he was and what he was doing on almost every day of the 18th century (having grown up so close to Philadelphia, it happens) ...

but William Franklin is considered to be an illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin, his mother is unknown, his birth year is shady (probably for reasons I'm going to get into in a few minutes) ... yet he was raised by his statesman father to become Governor of New Jersey.

I'm sorry that was a typo!

The Long Beach Island Massacre was 1782. It's googlable and you walk past the site when you go to the beach in High Bar Harbor, NJ.

So Bill Franklin, son of the famous inventor, statesman and Founding Father, Ben.

Bill was born sometime around 1730. Officially February 22, 1730 (this matters later). His father acknowledged his existence in 1730.

In September 1730 Ben Franklin set up his common law marriage arrangement with Deborah Read and took the baby into their household. They had two more children - Francis, who died at age 3 or 4 from smallpox, and Sally.

Most people know the backstory about the common law marriage between Ben Franklin and Deborah Read.

Ben had been a boarder in Deborah's mother's house when they were teenagers, 17 and 15 respectively, after he left his native Boston for Philadelphia.

At that time, Ben proposed marriage to Deborah, but her mother would not allow it. He went to London at the request of the governor and she married another guy.

Deborah's husband abandoned her and fled to Barbados to escape debt.

Ben came back to Philadelphia and couldn't legally marry Deborah, because she was still married to the guy who abandoned her.

When they set up house, they included and raised William Franklin, despite his illegitimacy.

Some people think that the reason for all the shadiness around William was because he was Deborah and Ben's biological child, and with her being married to another man, this would be worse than him having an illegitimate child.

I don't see how that theory holds water, though, because the couple had two more children subsequently.

Anyway, Ben and Deborah raised William in Philadelphia, but he accompanied his father on several missions to England.

He was involved with his father's famous kite experiment, but most of us think he was a child at the time ... he was at least 21 when the kite experiment happened.

He went to London to study law at The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple under some guy named Rickard "The Omniscient" Jackson" ...

Ben and William were very, very close. He worked with his dad with science experiments, publishing, diplomacy, etc.

Before William went to London at around age 30, he was betrothed but never married to a girl back in Philly.

Then he followed in his father's footsteps and fathered an illegitimate son in London.

The son was named Willian Temple Franklin (it seems like they pretty much called him Temple). Temple was born on February 22, 1760 ... which I think is kind of weird because we have the same birthday for Ben Franklin's son and grandson, exactly 30 years apart, and we have no real idea about either mother.

Both men claimed their illegitimate infant sons and raised them with their new wives eventually (Bill placed Temple into foster care and then got married to a gal in London who was not his son's mother, ignoring his promise to the girl back in Philly).

We were brutal AF during the revolution. The Geneva convention didn't apply.

There are a lot of old homesteads and historic sites and every time I look deeply into one, it goes something like ...

"And the entire crew was massacred as they slept on the beach."

OR "he was surrounded and bayonetted to death by militia men while drinking at the tavern"

or "the Tory gang murdered 39 townspeople and burned all the stables"

"50 Tories dressed like Indians ..."

Mean while the Tory gang was the blacksmith and his cousins from up the road and the militia was farmer john and his cousins.

Ben Franklin was signing the Declaration of Independence and his daughter in law was dying in Prison and his son was organizing murderous raiders from a different prison all at the same time.

Ahh yes, also known as son of Cardinal Wosely and Zaccheus.

Did you not know that Trump was also King Henry VIII?.

Heard about Mother Shipton prophecies concerning Cardinal Wosely shall not see York?.

[imgur] [link to i.imgur.com (secure)]

And they both also born in New York..

Thank you for giving me something else to research :) I haven't come across any of that, but I'll look.

:) Trump went to the Wharton School of Business at U Penn, which sprang from an academy founded by Ben Franklin.

Mr. Wharton is also a really fascinating character ...

There's a place where near where I live called Wharton State Forest.

Mr. Wharton was a wealthy industrialist and he had a plan to pipe water from the aquifer in the pine barrens all the way across the Delaware to improve the quality of water in Philadelphia.

As is typical for them, the folks in the NJ state legislature put the kabosh on Wharton's plan and made it illegal to export water from New Jersey.

Mr. Wharton got the State Forest and the business school named after him instead.

Last Edited by SugarSand on 10/14/2021 06:00 PM

If we had more of this going on now, we'd have more Patriotism and LESS shady dealings....