William Franklin

Franklin, William Buel (1823-1903) Union Army officer and military engineer, born in York, Pennsylvania. Franklin saw creditable action at First Bull Run (1861), in the Peninsular campaign (1862), and at Antietam (1862), but is remembered mainly for his part in the failure at Fredericksburg (1862). Earlier in his military career, while in the Corps of Topographical Engineers, Franklin had participated in expeditions to survey the Great Lakes and to analyze routes to California. After service in the Mexican War (1846-48), he oversaw several engineering projects in Washington, including construction of the dome of the Capitol.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

The American colonial administrator William Franklin (ca. 1731-1813) was the last of the royal governors of New Jersey. He chose to support Great Britain throughout the American Revolution.

William Franklin, the illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin, was born in 1731 (possibly late 1730) and reared in his father's home. He obtained a militia commission with Pennsylvanians on the New York frontier and by 1750 had risen to captain.

When he returned to Philadelphia, Franklin became comptroller of the General Post Office, under his father, and clerk of the General Assembly. He accompanied the elder Franklin to England in 1757, studied law, and gained admittance to the bar. He traveled with his father in Europe and assisted in his scientific studies; Oxford awarded him a master of arts degree in 1762 at the same time his father was awarded an honorary degree. That year William married Elizabeth Downes. Personable and handsome, he fitted easily into English society. Through the influence of the Earl of Bute, he was appointed governor of New Jersey in 1763.

Despite the reservations of the proprietor of Pennsylvania, Franklin and his bride were at first popular in the colony. As governor, he tactfully avoided disputes with the Assembly and demonstrated genuine interest in improving roads, aiding agriculture, and reforming the legal code. But as differences grew between the colonists and the mother country, his position became difficult. He appreciated certain American grievances, but he had scant faith in popular government and supported the authoritarian stance his proprietor's instructions required.

After the extralegal Perth Amboy Convention (October 1765) chose delegates to the Stamp Act Congress, Franklin was in continual difficulties with New Jersey rebels. He became estranged from his father. Even after hostilities commenced, Franklin remained in office as a loyalist, forwarding information on the New Jersey situation to England. After January 1776 he was kept under guard by the Provincial Congress, which ordered his arrest on June 15 and had him imprisoned in Connecticut. Denied permission to visit his dying wife, he was exchanged in 1778.

For a time Franklin stayed in New York, where he served as president of the Board of Associated Loyalists. Soon he returned to England; the British commission on loyalist claims eventually awarded him £1,800 and a pension for the loss of his estates. He became reconciled with his father by letter in 1784 and died in England on Nov. 16, 1813.

Further Reading

Letters from William Franklin to William Strahan, edited by Charles Henry Hart (1911), is an illuminating source. Carl Van Doren's monumental Benjamin Franklin (1938) has much information on William. Other sources are Paul L. Ford, Who Was the Mother of Franklin's Son (1889); Francis Bazley Lee, New Jersey as a Colony and and as a State, vol. 1 (1902); and Donald L. Kemmerer, Path to Freedom: The Struggle for Self-Government in Colonial New Jersey, 1703-1776 (1940).

Additional Sources

Gerlach, Larry R., William Franklin, New Jersey's last royal governor, Trenton: New Jersey Historical Commission, 1975.

Randall, Willard Sterne, A little revenge: Benjamin Franklin and his son, Boston: Little, Brown, 1984.

Skemp, Sheila L., Benjamin and William Franklin: father and son, patriot and loyalist, Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press, 1994.

Franklin H. Williams was a lawyer, government administrator, and ambassador who played an important role in the modern civil rights movement. As an attorney with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Williams worked to desegregate public schools, public housing, and employment.

Williams was born on October 22, 1917, in Flushing, New York. He graduated from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania in 1941 and served in a racially-segregated unit of the U.S. Army in World War II. He graduated from Fordham University Law School in 1945.

After receiving his law degree, Williams accepted a position with the NAACP. From 1945 to 1950, Williams was an assistant special counsel for the NAACP's Legal Defense and Educational Fund and a special assistant to Thurgood Marshall, the head of the fund who later became an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Williams worked with Marshall during the NAACP's efforts to desegregate public education, which were significantly aided by the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S. Ct. 686, 98 L. Ed. 873. Brown overruled the 1896 decision of Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 16 S. Ct. 1138, 41 L. Ed. 256, which had allowed racially-segregated facilities on trains and by implication in public schools.

In 1950 Williams became the NAACP's regional director of the western states. Under his leadership, the office pushed for legislation on minority employment, open housing, and other civil rights issues. In 1959 Williams left the organization to become an assistant attorney general of California, where he was instrumental in setting up the state's constitutional rights section.

In 1961 Williams became special assistant to Sargent Shriver, who helped establish the Peace Corps. In 1963 Williams served as director of the African regional division. In the same year, Williams became the first African American to serve as U.S. representative to the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

In 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Williams as the U.S. ambassador to Ghana. He held the post until 1968 and is credited with improving what had been strained relations between the U.S. and Ghana.

Williams returned to New York City after leaving his diplomatic post. He headed the Urban Center at Columbia University and served as vice chairperson of the New York Board of Higher Education. In 1987 Williams chaired the New York State Judicial Commission on Minorities, which examined the treatment of minorities in the state's courts.

Williams also served as president of the Phelps-Stokes Fund from 1970 to 1990. This foundation was established in 1911 to improve educational opportunities for African Americans, Native Americans, and Africans. One of Williams's first moves as president was to persuade the foundation's board to divest itself of holdings in corporations doing business with South Africa, which at that time was governed by a white minority employing the racially-segregated practices of apartheid. Williams's divestiture action was later adopted by other foundations and institutions.

Williams died on May 20, 1990, in New York City.

Quotes:

"Furious activity is no substitute for understanding."

For other uses, see William Franklin (disambiguation).

William Franklin (1731-1813)

William Franklin (1731 – November 17, 1813) was the last Colonial Governor of New Jersey. William was a steadfast Loyalist throughout the Revolutionary War, despite his father's role as one of the most prominent Patriots during the conflict, a difference that tore the two apart.

He was born in Philadelphia, the illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin. His mother's identity is unknown though evidence suggests she was a "Low Woman".^[1] He was raised by his father and his common-law wife Deborah Read. There is some speculation William's mother may have been Deborah Read, and that because of his parents' common law relationship, the circumstances of his birth were obscured so as not to be politically harmful to William. He accompanied his father on several missions, including his trips to England. Although often depicted as a young child when he assisted his father in the famed kite experiment in 1752, William was 21 years old at the time.

William joined the American Regiment and fought in Albany in the King George's War, eventually obtaining the rank of captain. He completed his education in England, and was admitted to the bar. William and Benjamin Franklin were partners and confidantes, working together to pursue land grants in the Midwest.

William was engaged to Elizabeth Graeme, daughter of prominent Philadelphia physician Dr. Thomas Graeme and granddaughter of Pennsylvania's 14th Governor, Sir William Keith. Neither family approved of the match, and when William went to London to study law, he left with the understanding that Elizabeth would wait for him. While there, however, he married another Elizabeth - Elizabeth Downes {1728-1777}- on September 4, 1762 and had one son, William Temple Franklin, who may or may not have been illegitimate, and who, by mutual decision, was raised by Benjamin Franklin.

When the family returned from England, in 1763, he carried a commission from George III to be the Royal Governor of New Jersey, secured in large part based on his father's lobbying efforts. As Governor, William Franklin signed the charter for Queen's College, which would evolve into Rutgers University.

Owing to his father's pivotal role as a Founding Father of the American Revolution and William's loyalty to Britain, the relationship between father and son was strained past the breaking point. When Benjamin finally decided to take up the patriot's cause, he tried to convince William to join him, but the son stayed steadfastly loyal to the Crown.

William remained as governor until he was arrested by the Provincial Congress of New Jersey in 1776. For two years, he was held as a prisoner of war in Connecticut. When finally released in 1778,^[2] he fled to New York City, which was still occupied by the British. Active in the Loyalist community of New York, Franklin played a role in the hanging of Joshua Huddy. In 1782, Franklin left with other loyalists for England [2], never to return. William would see his father one last time in 1785, when Benjamin stopped in Britain following his return from a trip to France. On August 14, 1788 William married Mary Johnson d'Evelin.

In his will, Benjamin Franklin left William virtually none of his wealth, stating that had England won the war, the elder Franklin would have had no wealth to leave to his son anyway^[3]. Neither does Benjamin mention his son in his autobiography except indirectly by the inclusion of a newspaper article in which Benjamin notes that his (then still in good standing) son may make contracts for the procurement of carts for the British army^[4].

William tried without success to reconcile with his father through a letter sent on August 16 1784.

William Franklin died in 1813, and is buried in St Pancras Old Church churchyard.

Franklin Township, in Bergen County, New Jersey was named in his honor, rather than for his father, as was the borough of Franklin Lakes. Franklin Township, in Somerset County, New Jersey, site of the Revolutionary War Battle of Middlebush, was believed by many to have been named for him, though no document exists to prove so^[5]. In 2000, the Franklin Township Council determined it should espouse the hypothesis that the Township was indeed named for Benjamin Franklin. Downe Township, Cumberland County, New Jersey was named after the maiden name of Williams wife, Elizabeth. The "s" on Downes was dropped.

Contents 1 See also 2 Further reading 3 References 4 External links

See also

• Burlington Company
• Proprietary House
• Willingboro, NJ
• Cumberland County, NJ

Further reading

• Sheila Skemp, William Franklin: Son of a Patriot, Subject of a King (1990).

References

1. ^ Franklin, Benjamin from Britannica Online, accessed November 16, 2006
2. ^ http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0819491.html
3. ^ Last Will and Testament of Benjamin Franklin, accessed July 5, 2006
4. ^ Benjamin Franklin. (1706–1790). His Autobiography., accessed July 5, 2006
5. ^ [1]

External links

• Biography of William Franklin
• Franklin Institute Biography of William Franklin
• William Franklin at Find a Grave

Government offices
Preceded by Josiah Hardy	Governor of New Jersey Last Colonial Governor 1763 – 1776 Last Royal Governor	Succeeded by William Livingston First Revolutionary Governor

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)