The Parallel Lives

William Franklin was born in Philadelphia in 1730. His father was Benjamin Franklin. His mother was unknown. Ben brought William, his illegitimate son, into his home, that same year.

     Ben and his common-law wife, Deborah Reed, agreed to raise William together.

     On June 10, 1752, when William was twenty-one, Ben conducted his experiment with a kite, a key, and a lightning bolt, near their home in Philadelphia.

     In 1757, Ben and William sailed to London. Ben remained there for the next sixteen years. 

     In 1759, William began to study law at the Inns of the Court in the Middle Temple in London. In 1760, he too acknowledged an illegitimate son, named William Temple Franklin. His mother also was unknown. William placed Temple Franklin into foster care.

     In 1762, Ben secured a position for William as royal governor of New Jersey. William sailed back to America, but Ben remained in London. Father and son wrote letters back and forth.

     Ben worked to keep the thirteen colonies and England’s King and Parliament united, but he saw the corruption of the English government, and he idealized Americans. 

     William though saw British law as supreme, and obedience to King as a path to prosperity.

     After the Boston Tea Party, on December 16, 1773, William wrote to Ben and said, “Nothing can make the Bostonians acknowledge the right of the Parliament to tax them. To do justice, the Bostonians must pay for the tons of tea that have been destroyed.”

     Ben replied back to William, “The British have extorted many thousands of pounds from America unconstitutionally and with an armed force. Of this money, they ought to make restitution. But you are a thorough courtier, and you see everything with government eyes.”

     In the spring of 1775, Ben gave up negotiating with the British, and sailed back to America, eager to work for independence. He took with him his grandson, Temple, then fifteen years old. 

     One day, William, the son, visited Benjamin, the father, and there William met Temple, his son and Ben’s grandson. 

     Ben urged his son William to join the Patriot cause for independence, but William refused, thinking a reconciliation with King still possible. “They argued all night. At another meeting, neighbors heard them shouting. They went their separate ways.”

     William was the last colonial governor of New Jersey, forced out in 1776, when colonial militiamen placed him under arrest. The new state congress of New Jersey took William into custody, and officials incarcerated him in Connecticut for two years for spying on the Patriots. 

     He then was held in solitary confinement at Litchfield, Connecticut for eight months.

     When released, William fled to New York City, where he set up a spy network, and coordinated the Associated Loyalists, a military unit that attacked Patriots in secret.

     In 1782, after Washington defeated Cornwallis at Yorktown, William fled to England.

     On August 16, 1784, Ben wrote to William and said, “Nothing has ever hurt me so much, as to find myself deserted in my old age by my only son, and not only deserted, but to find him taking up arms against me.”

     William met Ben for the last time in 1785, in England. That day Ben insisted that William sign deeds to transfer ownership of his property in America to Temple, the son and grandson.

     In his will, Benjamin left little to William, and said, “The part he acted against me in the late war, which is of public notoriety, will account for my leaving him no more of an estate [than that] he endeavored to deprive me of.”

     The American Revolution divided families. “That’s what happens when a real civil war happens in a country.”