Franklin became an excellent printer, and the governor of Pennsylvania asked him to go to London to purchase font types and printing supplies. In exchange for his services, the governor promised to help Franklin start his own printing business. In the meantime, Franklin and Deborah had grown very close, and she had begun to suggest they should get married. He was unsure what to do, and left for England.
Unfortunately, the governor had lied, and Franklin was forced to work in London for several months. There were rumors that Rogers already had a wife in England. Upon his return to Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin borrowed money and started his own printing business. He worked extremely hard and soon received government printing contracts.
His business was very successful, and he became well known throughout Philadelphia. In , Franklin bought the Pennsylvania Gazette and turned it into the most successful newspaper in the colonies. His newspaper contained the very first political cartoons. Franklin asked Deborah to marry him, but she said that a new marriage was out of the question as long as there was any chance that John Rogers might reappear — they could have been charged with bigamy.
On September 1, , the couple entered into a common law marriage, agreeing to live together as husband and wife without formal approval by religious or civil authorities.
While most almanacs of the time contained weather reports and other predictions, his Almanac contained lively writing, interesting facts, and creative sayings — many which are still used today. Children Deborah Franklin gave birth to two children. Their first child, a boy, named Francis Folger Franklin died in at age four of smallpox, a contagious disease that causes fever, vomiting and skin eruptions.
Their daughter Sarah was born in The Baches lived there for twenty-five years and raised their seven children there, enjoying the generosity of her parents. Sarah served as housekeeper after her mother died, and later was hostess and caregiver for her father when he returned from France in Franky had died on November 21, a month after his 4th birthday, and his father sought to dispel the rumor that a smallpox inoculation was responsible.
And we can imagine that for Deborah it was even worse. Many biographers and historians have followed suit, accepting at face value that Franky was simply too sick for inoculation. But Franklin himself hinted that something else delayed his action and perhaps cost Franky his life. Most likely, it was a disagreement with Deborah over inoculation. The argument that Franky was sickly is based primarily on one fact: Nearly a year passed between his birth and his baptism.
When Franky was finally baptized, his father just happened to be on an extended trip to New England. It appears that Deborah, tired of arguing with her husband over the need to baptize their son, had it done while he was out of town. But he might have had, as Franklin claimed, an unfortunately timed and uncommonly drawn-out case of dysentery throughout September, October and early November Did it render the boy too sick to be inoculated?
From the outset, his father hinted otherwise. Franklin said as much many years later. Clearly Franklin believed he had had a choice and had chosen wrong. How did a man who understood better than most the relative safety and efficacy of inoculation choose wrong? Possibly he just lost his nerve. Other men had. Six years into that marriage, her husband was advancing so quickly in the world that she might have begun to worry he might one day outgrow his plain, poorly educated wife.
If originally she had believed Franky would bring her closer to Benjamin, now she just hoped the boy would help her keep hold of him. By that logic, risking her son to inoculation was unacceptable. But as in that earlier case, his public chivalry probably disguised his private beliefs.
It surfaced in various forms. A customer had bought paper on credit, and Deborah had forgotten to note which paper he had bought. Theoretically, the customer could claim to have purchased a lesser grade and underpay what he owed. It was a small matter, but Benjamin was incensed. And when Franklin sailed for London in he made no secret of his ambivalence about leaving his year-old daughter with Deborah. At some point in the year after Franky died, Benjamin commissioned a portrait of the boy.
Was it an attempt to lift Deborah out of debilitating grief? Deborah appears to have embraced it without qualm—and over time seems to have accepted it as a surrogate for her son. I thought so too. It must be of Use to your Health, the having such an Amusement. Did he envy it? Or did he fear that they would lose this new Franky, too?
I hope he will be spared, and continue the same Pleasure and Comfort to you, and that I shall ere long partake with you in it. Over time, Benjamin, too, came to regard the grandson he had yet to lay eyes on as a kind of reincarnation of his dead son. In a January letter to his sister Jane, he shared the emotions the boy stirred in him—emotions he had hidden from his wife.
Franklin finally left London for home three months after Deborah died. When he met his grandson he, too, became infatuated with the boy—so much so that he effectively claimed Benny for his own.
Deborah Porter — Deborah Z. Contents 1 Personal life 2 Works … Wikipedia. Deborah Read. Biography portal. Categories: births deaths Benjamin Franklin Pennsylvania colonial people Franklin family American politics biographical stubs.
The English town of Reading on the River Thames derives its name from a very early English tribal or community group… … Wikipedia Deborah Franklin — Pour les articles homonymes, voir Franklin. Dictionaries export , created on PHP,. Mark and share Search through all dictionaries Translate… Search Internet. Deborah Read Franklin circa February 14, December 24, aged
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