William Franklin was an American-born attorney, soldier, politician, and colonial administrator.
37 Facts About William Franklin
2.
William Franklin was the acknowledged extra-marital son of Benjamin Franklin.
3.
William Franklin was the last colonial Governor of New Jersey, and a steadfast Loyalist throughout the American Revolutionary War.
4.
William Franklin was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, then a colony in British America.
5.
William Franklin was the extra-marital son of Benjamin Franklin, a leading figure in the city.
6.
William Franklin was raised by his father and Deborah Read, his father's common-law wife; she had been abandoned by her legal husband but not divorced.
7.
William Franklin joined a company of Pennsylvania provincial troops in 1746 and spent a winter in Albany in King George's War, obtaining the rank of captain in 1747.
Related searches
Benjamin Franklin 8.
William Franklin studied law at the Middle Temple, chiefly under Richard Jackson "The Omniscient".
9.
William Franklin's mother has never been identified, and Temple was placed in foster care.
10.
William Franklin was born in the English colony of Barbados to the sugar planter John Downes and his wife, Elizabeth.
11.
William Franklin met Franklin while visiting England with her father in 1760.
12.
William Franklin was interred beneath the altar of St Paul's Chapel in lower Manhattan, where she had resided after the British evacuated Perth Amboy.
13.
William Franklin was a widower for more than ten years.
14.
William Franklin completed his law education in England, and was admitted to the bar.
15.
William and Benjamin Franklin became partners and confidants, working together to pursue land grants in what was then called the Northwest.
16.
William Franklin was inducted into the original American Philosophical Society, founded by Benjamin William Franklin, around 1758.
17.
In 1763, William Franklin was appointed as the Royal Governor of New Jersey.
18.
Bute made the decision secretly to grant the request, not even informing Benjamin William Franklin; he intended as a reward for Benjamin's role and a move to weaken the Penn faction.
19.
William Franklin replaced Josiah Hardy, a merchant and colonial administrator who sided with the New Jersey legislature against the government in London.
20.
William Franklin proved an able governor; avoiding quarrels with the assembly, he put forth effort to bring about popular reforms, such as the improvement of roads and construction of bridges.
21.
William Franklin worked to secure crop subsidies from England and founded the colony's chancery courts.
22.
William Franklin encouraged the assembly to grant a charter to Rutgers, the state university, and curtailed imprisonment for debt.
23.
William Franklin pardoned 105 women sentenced to jail for adultery during his fourteen-year term.
24.
William Franklin established the first Indian reservation in America at Brotherton in Burlington County.
25.
When Benjamin decided to take up the Patriot cause, he tried to convince William Franklin to join him, but the son refused.
Related searches
Benjamin Franklin 26.
Further, unlike his father William Franklin was a devout member of the Church of England, which reinforced his loyalty to the Crown.
27.
William Franklin remained as governor of New Jersey, and secretly reported Patriot activities to London.
28.
William Franklin was incarcerated in Connecticut for two years, in Wallingford and Middletown.
29.
William Franklin surreptitiously engaged Americans in supporting the Loyalist cause.
30.
William Franklin built up an unofficial yet active spy network.
31.
Nonetheless, William Franklin coordinated a multi-colony group known as the Associated Loyalists that waged guerrilla warfare in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
32.
In 1782 William Franklin was implicated in the Loyalist officer Richard Lippincott's hanging of Joshua Huddy.
33.
At the time, some alleged that William Franklin had sanctioned the killing of Huddy.
34.
Ironically, Benjamin William Franklin was a senior negotiator for the revolutionary Americans in Paris when the Asgill Affair occurred.
35.
William Franklin said that had Britain won the war, he would have had no wealth to leave his son.
36.
William Franklin died in 1813, and was buried in London's St Pancras Old Church churchyard.
37.
William Franklin is referenced in a humorous dialogue exchange in the stage musical 1776.