Walter Isaacson Great Innovators e-book boxed set

by Walter Isaacson

  Most historians say that William was born sometime between April 12, 1730, and April 12, 1731. This is based on a letter Franklin wrote to his own mother on April 12, 1750, referring to William as “now 19 years of age, a tall, proper youth, and much of a beau.”

  Willard Sterne Randall in A Little Revenge, a fascinating but somewhat speculative account of Franklin’s troubled relationship with his son, questions this. In September 1746, William left home with an ensign’s commission on a military expedition to Canada, and Randall argues that he was unlikely to have been only 15 or 16. Perhaps, in writing his mother, Franklin was shaving a year or two off William’s age to make him seem legitimate. Likewise, the meticulous Franklin scholar J. A. Leo Lemay, on his Web site detailing Franklin’s life, surmises he was born in 1728 or 1729, as do some nineteenth-century biographers.

  However, we know that before he was allowed to enlist, perhaps sometime in early 1746, William tried to run away to sea, and his father had to fetch him home from a ship in the harbor, which indicates that he indeed might have been not any older than 15 or 16 at the time (his father had considered running off to sea at age 12, and did run away to Philadelphia at 17). Sheila Skemp’s comprehensive biography of William makes it seem quite logical that he embarked with the military at 16, well after he finished his schooling. In addition, William was responsible for the belief reported in a magazine that he was 82 when he died in 1813 (which would place his birth in late 1730 or early 1731).

  On balance, because neither man ever denied William’s illegitimacy, it makes sense to believe that Franklin was telling the truth to his mother when he referred to William’s age, and it makes equal sense to believe that William was never (intentionally or not) misleading about his age. Based on these assumptions, it is likely that William was born around the time that Deborah began living with Franklin in late 1730.25

  That being the case, might Deborah actually have been his mother, as some scholars speculate? Might the common-law marriage have been partly occasioned by her pregnancy, while William’s origin was left murky in case Rogers reappeared and charged her with bigamy and adultery? As Carl Van Doren muses, “There was bound to be a scandal. But of course it would be less if the child appeared to be Franklin’s and an unknown mother’s. The lusty philosopher could take all the blame.”

  But this theory doesn’t bear much scrutiny. If Deborah had been pregnant and given birth, there would surely be some friends and relatives, including her mother, who would have known. As H. W. Brands puts it, “Even after the passage of years precluded any further concerns about Rogers, Debbie declined to claim William as her own—an omission impossible to imagine in any mother, let alone one who had to watch from close at hand while her son spent his life labeled a bastard.” On the contrary, she was openly hostile to him. According to a clerk who later worked for the Franklins, Deborah referred to William as “the greatest villain upon earth” and heaped upon him “invectives in the foulest terms I ever heard from a gentlewoman.”26

  During a heated election in 1764, William’s paternity became an issue. One abusive pamphlet charged that he was the son of a prostitute named Barbara who was subsequently exploited by the Franklins as a maid until she died and was buried in an unmarked grave. Given the scurrilous nature of that campaign and the unlikelihood that any of the Franklins could have abided having William’s real mother around as their maid, this also seems implausible.

  The best explanation comes from a 1763 letter about William, rediscovered more than two centuries later, which was written by George Roberts, a prosperous Philadelphia merchant who was a close family friend. “ ’Tis generally known here his birth is illegitimate and his mother not in good circumstances,” Roberts wrote to a friend in London, “but the report of her begging bread in the streets of this city is without the least foundation in truth. I understand some small provision is made by him for her, but her being none of the most agreeable women prevents particular notice being shown, or the father and son acknowledging any connection with her.” As Roberts was probably in a position to know, and as he had no ulterior motive, we are left with this as the likeliest scenario.27

  A Frugal Mate

  In his autobiography (which extols the virtues of “industry” and “frugality” a total of thirty-six times), Franklin wrote of his wife, “It was lucky for me that I had one as much disposed to industry and frugality as myself.” He gives her even more credit in a letter written later, near the end of his life: “Frugality is an enriching virtue, a virtue I could never acquire in myself, but I was lucky enough to find it in a wife, who thereby became a fortune to me.” For Franklin, this passed for true love. Deborah helped at the print shop, stitched pamphlets, and purchased rags for papermaking. At least initially, they had no servants, and Franklin ate his bread-and-milk porridge each morning from a twopenny bowl.

  In later years, after a conflicted Franklin had developed some taste for finery while still clinging to his admiration for frugality, he wryly recounted a little lapse on Deborah’s part that showed “how luxury will enter families and make a progress, in spite of principle.” One day he arrived at breakfast to find it served in a china bowl with a silver spoon. Deborah had bought them at the “enormous sum” of 23 shillings, with “no other excuse or apology to make but that she thought her husband deserved a silver spoon and china bowl as well as any of his neighbors.” With a droll mix of pride and disdain, Franklin recalled how, over many years, as their wealth grew, they ended up with china and furnishings worth several hundred pounds.

  When the young Franklin heard that his little sister Jane was planning to marry, he wrote her a letter that reflected his view that a good wife should be frugal and industrious. He had thought about sending her a tea table, he said, but his practical nature got the better of him. “When I considered that the character of a good housewife was far preferable to that of being only a pretty gentlewoman, I concluded to send you a spinning-wheel.” As Poor Richard would soon phrase it in his first almanac: “Many estates are spent in the getting/ Since women for tea forsook spinning and knitting.”28

  The virtue of frugality was also one of young Franklin’s favorite themes in his newspaper writings. In Anthony Afterwit’s letter, after complaining about having to elope with no dowry, he goes on to ridicule his wife for adopting the airs and spending habits of a gentlewoman. First she pays for a fancy mirror, which then requires a nice table under it, then a tea service, and then a clock. Facing mounting debts, Anthony decides to sell these things when his wife leaves town to visit relatives. To replace the fancy furniture, he buys a spinning wheel and some knitting needles. He asks the Gazette to publish the letter so that she will read it before she returns and thus be prepared. “If she can conform to this new scheme of living, we shall be the happiest couple perhaps in the province.” And then, as a reward, he might let her have the nice mirror back.

  Less sexist than most men of his day, Franklin also aimed his barbs at men. Afterwit’s letter was answered two weeks later by one from another Franklin creation, Celia Single. With the delightful gossipy voice of his other female characters, such as Silence Dogood and Alice Addertongue, Single recounts a visit to a friend whose husband is trying to replicate Afterwit’s approach. A raucous argument ensues. “There is neither sin nor shame in knitting a pair of stockings,” the husband says. She replies, “There are poor women enough in town that can knit.” Single finally leaves, “knowing that a man and his wife are apt to quarrel more violently when before strangers than when by themselves.” She later hears that the knitting thread ended up in the fireplace.

  Single (or rather Franklin) goes on to admonish Franklin for publishing more tales of self-indulgent women than men. “If I were disposed to be censorious, I could furnish you with instances enough,” she says, then proceeds to rattle off a long list of men who waste their time playing pool, dice, or checkers and buying fancy clothes. Finally, Franklin has her cleverly poke at his veil of pseudonymity. “There are holes
enough to be picked in your coat as well as others; and those who are affronted by the satires you may publish will not consider so much who wrote as who printed.”29

  On a more serious and less modern note, Franklin published, four weeks after he married, “Rules and Maxims for Promoting Matrimonial Happiness.” He began with a paean to marriage, “the surest and most lasting foundation of comfort and love.” However, the folly of some who enter into it often makes it “a state of the most exquisite wretchedness and misery.” He apologized for aiming his advice at women, as men were in fact more faulty, “but the reason is because I esteem them better disposed to receive and practice it.”

  Among his rules: avoid all thoughts of managing your husband, never deceive him or make him uneasy, accept that he “is a man not an angel,” “resolve every morning to be good-natured and cheerful,” remember the word “obey” in your marriage vows, do not dispute with him, and “deny yourself the trivial satisfaction of having your own will.” A woman’s power and happiness, Franklin wrote, “has no other foundation than her husband’s esteem and love.” Therefore, a wife should “share and soothe his cares, and with the utmost diligence conceal his infirmities.” And when it comes to sex: “Let the tenderness of your conjugal love be expressed with such decency, delicacy and prudence as that it may appear plainly and thoroughly distinct from the designing fondness of a harlot.”30

  Franklin’s essays and fictional letters make it clear that he entered into his union with Deborah holding some traditional views on matrimony: wives should be supportive, households should be run frugally and industriously. Fortunately for him, Deborah tended to share those views. In general, she had plain tastes, a willingness to work, and a desire to please her spouse. Of course, as he might have pointed out, the same could be said of him at the time.

  And so they settled into a partnership that was both more and less than a conventional marriage. A tireless collaborator both in the house and at work, Deborah handled most of the accounts and expanded their shop’s inventory to include ointments made by her mother, crown soap made by Franklin’s Boston relatives, coffee, tea, chocolate, saffron, cheese, fish, and various other sundries. She strained her eyes binding books and sewing clothes by candlelight. And though her spelling and choice of words reflected her lack of education—the sexton of the church was noted as the “seck stone” and one customer was called “Mary the Papist”—her copious entries in their shop book are a delightful record of the times.

  Franklin’s affection for her grew from his pride at her industry; many years later, when he was in London arguing before the House of Commons that unfair taxes would lead to boycotts of British manufacturers, he asserted that he had never been prouder than when he was a young tradesman and wore only clothes that had been made by his wife.

  But Deborah was not merely a submissive or meek partner to the man she often addressed (as he did her) as “my dear child” and whom she sometimes publicly called “Pappy.” She had a fierce temper, which Franklin invariably defended. “Don’t you know that all wives are in the right?” he asked a nephew who was having a dispute with Deborah. Soon after their marriage, he wrote a piece called “A Scolding Wife,” in which he defended assertive women by saying they tended to be “active in the business of the family, special good housewives, and very careful of their husband’s interests.”31

  The only extant painting of Deborah makes her appear to be a sensible and determined women, plump and plain but not unattractive. In a letter he wrote her years later from London, he described a mug he was sending and compared it to her: “I fell in love with it at first sight, for I thought it looked like a fat, jolly dame, clean and tidy, with a neat blue and white calico gown on, good natured and lovely, and just put me in mind of—somebody.”

  It was a relationship that did not inspire great romantic verse, but it did produce an endearing ballad that he put into the mouth of Poor Richard. In it, Franklin paid tribute to “My Plain Country Joan” and blessed the day he made her his own. Among the lyrics:

  Not a word of her shape, or her face, or her eyes,

  Of flames or of darts shall you hear:

  Though I beauty admire, ’tis virtue I prize,

  Which fades not in seventy years…

  In peace and good order my household she guides,

  Right careful to save what I gain;

  Yet cheerfully spends, and smiles on the friends

  I’ve the pleasure to entertain…

  The best have some faults, and so has my Joan,

  But then they’re exceedingly small,

  And now, I’m used to ’em, they’re so like my own.

  I can scarcely feel them at all.

  Over the years, Franklin would outgrow Deborah in many ways. Though they shared values, he was far more worldly and intellectual than she was, or ever wanted to be. There is some evidence that she may have been born in Birmingham and brought to America as a young child, but during her adult life she seems never to have spent a night away from Philadelphia, and she lived most of her life on Market Street within two blocks of the house where she was raised.

  Franklin, on the other hand, loved to travel, and although he would, in later years, occasionally express some hope that she would accompany him, he knew that she was not so inclined. He seemed to sense that she would not be socially comfortable in his new realms. So, in this regard, they respected each other’s independence, perhaps to a fault. For fifteen of the last seventeen years of Deborah’s life, Franklin would be away, including when she died. Nevertheless, their mutual affection, respect, and loyalty—and their sense of partnership—would endure.32

  Francis

  Two years into their marriage, in October 1732, Deborah gave birth to a son. Francis Folger Franklin, known as Franky, was doted on by both parents: he had his portrait painted when still a baby, and his father advertised for a tutor to teach both his children when Francis was 2 and William about 4. For the rest of his life, Franklin would marvel at the memory of how precocious, curious, and special Franky was.

  These were, alas, destined to be only sorrowful memories. In one of the few searing tragedies of Franklin’s life, Franky died of smallpox just after his fourth birthday. On his grave, Franklin chose a simple epitaph: “The delight of all who knew him.”

  The bitter irony was that Franklin had become a fervent advocate of smallpox vaccinations after they had been ridiculed in the New England Courant when Franklin worked there for his brother. In the years preceding Franky’s birth, he had editorialized in the Pennsylvania Gazette in support of inoculations and published statistics showing how effective they were. In 1730, for example, he wrote an account of a Boston epidemic in which most people who had been vaccinated were spared.

  He had planned to inoculate Franky, but he had delayed doing so because the boy had been ill with the flux. In a sad announcement that appeared in his paper a week after the boy’s death, Franklin denied rumors that he died from being vaccinated. “I do hereby sincerely declare that he was not inoculated, but received the distemper in the common way of infection.” He went on to declare his belief that inoculation was “a safe and beneficial practice.”

  The memory of Franky was one of the few things ever to cause Franklin painful reflections. When his sister Jane wrote to him in London years later with happy news about his grandsons, Franklin responded that it “brings often afresh to my mind the idea of my son Franky, though now dead thirty-six years, whom I have seldom since seen equaled in everything, and whom to this day I cannot think of without a sigh.”33

  Adding to the poignancy, Franklin had written for his paper, while Franky was still alive, an unusually deep rumination on “The Death of Infants,” which was occasioned by the death of a neighbor’s child. Drawing on his observations of the tiny Franky, he described the magical beauty of babies: “What curious joints and hinges on which limbs are moved to and fro! What an inconceivable variety of nerves, veins, arteries, fibers, and little invisible parts are fo
und in every member!…What endless contrivances to secure life, to nourish nature, and to propagate the same to future animals!” How could it be, Franklin then asked, that “a good and merciful Creator should produce myriads of such exquisite machines to no other end or purpose but to be deposited in the dark chambers of the grave” before they were old enough to know good from evil or to serve their fellow man and their God? The answer, he admitted, was “beyond our mortal ken” to understand. “When nature gave us tears, she gave us leave to weep.”34

  Defining his God

  When we last took Franklin’s spiritual pulse in London, he had written his ill-conceived “Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity,” which attacked the idea of free will and much of Calvinist theology, and then he had repudiated the pamphlet as an embarrassing “erratum.” That left him in a religious quandary. He no longer believed in the received dogmas of his Puritan upbringing, which taught that man could achieve salvation only through God’s grace rather than through good works. But he was uncomfortable embracing a simple and unenhanced version of deism, the Enlightenment-era creed that reason and the study of nature (instead of divine revelation) tell us all we can know about our Creator. The deists he knew, including his younger self, had turned out to be squirrelly in their morals.

  On his return to Philadelphia, Franklin showed little interest in organized religion and even less in attending Sunday services. Still, he continued to hold some basic religious beliefs, among them “the existence of the Deity” and that “the most acceptable service of God was doing good to man.” He was tolerant toward all sects, particularly those that worked to make the world a better place, and he made sure “to avoid all discourse that might tend to lessen the good opinion another might have of his own religion.” Because he believed that churches were useful to the community, he paid his annual subscription to support the town’s Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Jedediah Andrews.35