Ben Franklin's Origins
Today was the first session of my 3-session Osher class on Benjamin Franklin. I talked about his family origins and his early life this morning, so I thought I would give you a synopsis here.
The family tree (above) gives you the outlines of Ben’s ancestors. His earliest Franklin ancestors – Henry and Thomas – were blacksmiths in Ecton, Northamptonshire, England, before coming to Massachusetts in 1682. His earliest Folger ancestors (his mother’s side) – John and Peter– were on Nantucket Island by 1635. Whereas the Folgers lodged squarely in the radical Puritan bloc that made up the wave of migration in the 1630s, the Franklin family’s religious views were more moderate. They identified as Presbyterians, and managed to stay away from the political and religious violence that defined the Civil War, Cromwell, and Restoration years.
In his autobiography, Franklin described his upbringing as poor and deprived, but the Franklins in England were actually pretty well off, as things were measured in those days. Blacksmiths made more than horseshoes – they made tools, pots and pans, nails, farm implements, hinges, locks, and so forth – anything that a member of the gentry needed in his home. The village (and county) blacksmith probably knew the members of the upper classes, conversed with them in the coffeehouses and pubs, and was up-to-date on what was going on in the community.
Northamptonshire was not a hotbed of Puritanism like Essex or Suffolk, but there was plenty going on. The Franklins were moderate dissenters – not the radical Puritans who emigrated in the 1630s, but more moderate Presbyterians who worked the middle ground. They attended services led by dissenting pastors, but managed to work with all people who needed a blacksmith – which meant everyone. This posture worked for them through the English Civil War, the Cromwell years, and the restoration era after 1660. It was only the increasing religious crisis of the 1680s, when it appears that England was prepared to accept the Catholic James, Duke of York, as the successor to Charles II, that the Franklins decided they had to move. They emigrated to Boston in 1682.
If they had just stuck around for a couple more years, they would have seen things turn in their favor. The Whigs, excluded from Parliament in the early 1680s, were back in control by 1688. James II reigned for only a few years before going into exile in France. James’s daughter Mary, considered the “heir presumptive” (second in the line of succession), had been raised as a protestant and married to her cousin William of Orange. When parliament ousted James II, William and Mary became King and Queen of England, the Whigs were back in favor, and the Franklins would have been fine. But they were in Boston when this all happened.
Ben’s father, Josiah, had married Ann Childs in England in 1677. They had seven children — two in England and five in Massachusetts — before she died in 1689, probably as a result of complications from childbirth. Josiah soon married a second time and had 10 children by his second wife, Abiah Folger. Ben was the eighth child of Josiah and Abiah, and he was Josiah’s tenth son.
One indicator that the Franklins had been fairly well-off in England is that Josiah and five of his brothers were apprenticed to tradesmen in London when they were in their early teens – most of them to silk-dyers. The oldest son, Thomas, became a blacksmith to follow the family tradition, but the other boys moved to London to learn this trade. This could only happen because the Franklins had connections in London and resources to sponsor their sons in their apprenticeships. When Josiah decided to emigrate to Boston, he took with him a skill that he hoped would bring him success in this new location. However, Puritan Boston was not the place to try to sell fancy dyed silk. So Josiah looked around, saw that the people of Boston needed candles and soap, and became a soap-maker and chandler. This is not as much of a stretch as it might seem; silk-dyers were fundamentally chemists, as were soap-makers.
But what was Ben going to do? His father encouraged him to be a soap-maker, but he didn’t want that for himself. Ben’s older brother Josiah had gone to sea, but when he didn’t return – ever – Ben’s parents didn’t want him to follow that path. Ben’s father thought about sending Ben to the church – making him a pastor and preacher – but Ben wasn’t interested in that either. Ben only attended school for about two years; the rest of his education was achieved through his unabashed curiosity about everything and his extraordinary reading ability. At that point, Ben’s father decided to offer Ben to his older brother James, who was in the process of establishing a printing business in Boston. At age 12, Ben becomes his brother’s apprentice. He learned the printing business, decided he likes to write and publish, and entered onto the career path that would soon take him to Philadelphia and to the fame that would follow.