The Backstory: Thicker Than Blood: Ben Franklin Ditches His Royalist Son

The time honored saying goes . . never discuss politics or religion in polite company. That seems truer today than ever. But is it? You think politics breaks up family ties now more than ever? It’s hard to believe that, like us, politics could fracture a Founding Father’s family. Ben Franklin was incredibly close to his son . . until William, then NJ’s royal governor, declared his allegiance to the King and went to prison for it. He and Ben never spoke again.

Feel free to DM me if you have a story you’d like me to cover . . on Facebook it’s Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Are you with me here? Y'lliget politics these days, and
you can't imagine more dysfunction even among family members. Ah,
the good old days. When you think of the founding fathers,
you think full on dedication to the revolutionary spirit. Right,
But did you know one of the most iconic names
in US history had a son who was a loyalist

(00:21):
to the British crown for the entire war and they
never spoke again. I'm Patty Steele. Ben Franklin's politics were
thicker than blood. That's next on the backstory. We're back
with the backstory. Benjamin Franklin was a little bit of
a puzzle now. On the one hand, he loved England

(00:43):
and his British heritage. He's a huge fan of the king,
and he really loved the fancy life in the European courts,
the high end manners, the intellectual stimulation, and especially hanging
out with the gorgeous party girls of the British and
French aristocracy. The ultimate ladies man. Believe it or not,
that was Ben. But after years living over there as

(01:05):
a diplomat from the colonies, he began to realize the
Brits in particular looked down their noses at Americans thought
of us as uncultured. On top of that, he began
to fully understand what British rule was costing folks in America.
So let's go back in time. When Ben was twenty
four years old, a woman he was sleeping with gave

(01:27):
birth to a baby boy, William. Ben wanted to raise
William himself and make sure that being illegitimate didn't define him,
so he entered into a common law marriage with Deborah,
a former sweetheart, letting her know that he and baby
William were kind of a package deal. She accepted that,
and while Ben was in Europe, she ran his publishing

(01:48):
business and was a terrific mother to William and the
one surviving child they had together, a daughter named Sarah,
but she was a girl and not nearly as interesting
to Ben. He was incredible close to his son and
made sure William had the best tutors and later schooling.
But Ben wasn't much of a husband. He spent most
of the years between seventeen fifty seven and seventeen seventy

(02:12):
five in England and was the first ambassador to France
from seventeen seventy six to seventeen eighty five. That's almost
thirty years overseas with very little time at home, all
without his wife, who hated the idea of ocean travel.
During his years in England, Ben pretty much never saw Deborah.
In fact, she died in seventeen seventy four while he

(02:35):
was in England, having not seen Ben for the last
ten years of her life. She had had several strokes
in her last years, and Ben never returned home to
see her despite her requests. So eventually, in the year
before her death, she simply stopped writing to him, which
he weirdly didn't understand now. As for William, Ben encouraged

(02:56):
him to become active in public service as a royalist
like himself in the seventeen forties. The two were exceptionally tight.
In fact, a family friend described William as Ben's friend,
his brother, his intimate, his companion. When Ben went to
London in seventeen fifty seven, William went with him and
studied law there that toured the country, made important friends,

(03:19):
and attended the coronation of King George the Third in
seventeen sixty one. But you see, that's where the trouble started.
All that exposure to the British high life made William
a believer. When he returned to America, he brought a
British wife from an influential aristocratic British family, and he

(03:40):
was appointed Royal Governor of New Jersey. Ben and William
had shared so many interests, and both were brilliant and
charismatic guys. But while William was becoming more devoted to
the royal cause, his dad was becoming more of a revolutionary.
Ben left England just as the first shots of the
Revolutionary War were fired at Lexington and Concord in seventeen

(04:03):
seventy five, and that conflict pulled the two apart, with
Ben now an ardent patriot and William a committed loyalist.
Ben tried to win William over early, even had some
shouting matches when Ben tried to get William to step
down as Royal governor and become a patriot. Of course,
that didn't happen, and worst of all, Ben did manage

(04:25):
to convert William's son, Temple to the patriot's cause. It
was over between father and son. William was as devoted
to the royal cause as his father was to the
cause of independence, and Ben was prepared to totally banish
his son from his life. As the revolution got under way,
William was arrested by continental authorities and put in prison.

(04:48):
In fact, the Continental Congress, which ran the colonies during
the war, wouldn't even allow William to visit his wife
as she was dying in seventeen seventy eight. Even though
George Washington himself made a person appeal and Ben did
nothing to help his son, he remained in prison for
a little over two years. Even the end of the

(05:08):
war in seventeen eighty three didn't fix things between the two.
William was exiled from the brand new USA and he
moved to England to rebuild his life there. But here's
the thing. He really wanted to reconnect with his father.
So William wrote to Ben, saying, I hope it's possible
for us to revive that affectionate intercourse and connection which

(05:31):
till the war had been the pride and happiness of
my life. Ben replied, nothing has ever hurt me so
much and affected me with such keen sensations as to
find myself deserted in my old age by my only son,
and to find him taking up arms against me in
a cause wherein my good, fame, fortune in life were

(05:52):
all at stake. He didn't really care that William was
following his heart and his own path like his dad would.
Ben wanted him to follow his Ben did agree to
meet William in England later in seventeen eighty five, but
when they first arrived at the meeting place, the first
thing Ben did was ask his son to apologize for

(06:13):
his loyalty to the king during the war, and William
would not, and that finished that. Ben, in his will,
disinherited William, saying I leave him no part of an
estate he endeavored to deprive me of. Much like we
see in our own disturbing political climate, it came down
to ideology over blood. Benjamin and William Franklin never saw

(06:37):
each other again. Hope you're enjoying The Backstory with Patty Steele.
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story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty
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(07:00):
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(07:22):
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