William Franklin, the son of Benjamin Franklin, took a contrasting path to his father’s during the American Revolutionary War. While Benjamin Franklin was a key figure in the fight for independence, William Franklin remained loyal to the British Crown. Appointed as the Governor of New Jersey in 1763, William resisted the revolutionary movement by attempting to block New Jersey’s legislative assembly from supporting the Continental Congress.
Despite his efforts, the tide of colonial sentiment led to his removal from office, replaced by William Livingston. William Franklin was arrested by the revolutionaries and held as a prisoner for two years in Connecticut. After his release in 1778, he relocated to England, where he spent the remainder of his life, receiving a pension from the British government for his loyalty. He died in 1813 at the age of 82.
His loyalty to Britain caused a deep rift with his father, who felt betrayed. In a letter from 1784, Benjamin Franklin expressed the emotional pain caused by his son’s actions. This estrangement was further noted in Benjamin Franklin’s will, where he made modest bequests but justified withholding more by citing his son’s loyalty to Britain during the war.
Here is an 1857 article about Franklin and his son:
The Son of Benjamin Franklin
It is not generally known that our great philosopher, statesman and diplomatist had a son [William Franklin], who was almost as prominent, during the Revolutionary struggle, on the side of the royal oppressor as the patriotic sire was in the gloomier cause of the rebels. In relation to that son, we find the following rare facts collected in the Newberry Herald. We presume they will prove as rare to our readers as they have been to us. In the incorruptible Benjamin Franklin, they constitute a painful episode.
Before the Revolutionary War, he held several civil and military offices of importance. At the commencement of the war he held the office of Governor of New Jersey, which appointment he received in 1763.
When the difficulties between the mother country and the colonies were coming to a crisis, he threw his power in favor of loyalty, and endeavored to prevent the legislative assembly of New Jersey from sanctioning the proceedings of the General Congress, at Philadelphia.
These efforts, however, did but little to stay the tide of popular sentiment in favor of resistance to tyranny, and soon involved him in difficulty. He was deposed from office by the Whigs to give place to William Livingston, and sent a prisoner to Connecticut where he remained two years in East Windsor, in the house of Captain Ebenezer Grant, near where the Theological Seminary now stands. In 1778 he was exchanged and soon after went to England. There he spent the remainder of his life, receiving a pension from the British government he had sustained by his fidelity. He died in 1813, at the age of 82.
As might be expected, his opposition to the cause of liberty, so dear to the heart of his father, produced an estrangement between them. For years they had no [contact]. When in 1784, the son wrote to his father, in his reply Dr. Franklin says: “Nothing has hurt me so much, and effected me with such keen sensations, 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 in a cause where my good fame, fortune and life were at all stake.”
In his will, he also alludes to the part his son had acted. After making him some bequests, he adds: “The part he acted against me in the latter war, which is of public notoriety, will account for my leaving him no more of an estate he endeavored to deprive me of.”
Source: The Feliciana Democrat. (Clinton, La.), 16 May 1857.
