USA > Pennsylvania > Colonial and revolutionary families of Pennsylvania; genealogical and personal memoirs, Volume II > Part 5
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65
William Duane married (first) at Clonmel, Ireland, in 1779, Catharine Cor- coran, daughter of William Corcoran. She died in Philadelphia in 1798. He married (second) in 1801, Margaret Hartman (Markoe) Bache, widow of Ben- jamin Franklin Bache, whom Duane succeeded as the publisher of the Aurora in 1798.
WILLIAM JOHN DUANE, son of William and Catharine (Corcoran) Duane, born in Clonmel, Ireland, in 1780, came to Philadelphia with his parents in 1796, studied law, and was admitted to the Philadelphia bar in 1803. He became a prominent and successful lawyer and a leading figure in local, state and national politics. He was a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1812, declined a nomination to Congress by the Democratic party in 1824, and was appointed by President Jackson Secretary of the Treasury in 1833. He was not in accord with the views of Jackson in reference to the United States Bank, and refused to withdraw the public funds from that institution when asked to do so by the President. He was then requested to resign from the cabinet, but as a matter of principle refused to do so, and was removed by the President. He returned to Philadelphia and resumed his law practice. He was for many years private counsel for Stephen Girard, wrote the will of that famous philanthropist, by which Girard College was created and endowed, and later, was one of the active executors of the will, and as such took a prominent part in superintending the management of that great institution. He was one of the honorary pall bearers of John Quincy Adams at the funeral obsequies of that distinguished statesman, and continued to be active in public affairs until the time of his death which
691
DUANE
1317990
occurred September 26, 1865, at his residence No. 1604 Locust Street, Philadel- phia. William J. Duane married, December 31, 1805, Deborah Bache, daughter of Richard Bache and his wife Sarah Franklin, only daughter of Dr. Benjamin Franklin.
RICHARD BACHE, born in Settle, Yorkshire, September 12, 1737, came to America when a young man, following his elder brother, Theophylact Bache, (1734-1807), who had come to New York in 1751 and early engaged in mer- cantile business there, becoming one of the prominent merchants of that city and the owner of many vessels. Richard Bache having come to America to join his brother, was for a time associated with him in business in New York City and later came to Philadelphia to take charge of the local branch of the large mer- cantile trade carried on by them as partners. He married, in 1767, Sarah Frank- lin, daughter of Benamin Franklin, and succeeded his distinguished father-in- law as Postmaster-general of the United Colonies in 1776 and served until 1782. He was a delegate to the Provincial Convention held at Philadelphia, January 23, 1775, and was elected a member of the Provincial Committee of Safety in November, 1775. He became a member of the Board of War organ- ized in March, 1776, his colleagues being David Rittenhouse, Owen Biddle, Wil- liam Moore, Joseph Dean, Samuel Morris, Cadwalader Morris, John Bayard, George Gray and John Bull. He was chairman of the Republican Society, or- ganized in 1778, to urge the revision of the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776, in which he and Captain Samuel Morris and Francis Hopkinson were the lead- ing spirits. He took a prominent part in the celebration of the adoption of the Federal Constitution held at Philadelphia, July 4, 1788, participating in the parade as a herald proclaiming a "new era." He died in Philadelphia in 1811.
Sarah (Franklin) Bache, wife of Richard Bache and daughter of the great philosopher, Franklin, was born in Philadelphia in 1744. She was extremely active during the Revolutionary War in her efforts to relieve the miseries of the soldiers, collecting large amounts of money and hospital supplies and organiz- ing a corps of assistants for distribution of food and clothing, and continued to carry on this humane work until the close of the war. She died in 1808.
DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN was born in Boston, Massachusetts Bay colony, January 17, 1706, and came of a family of sturdy English yeomanry who for three centuries were freeholders in the village of Ecton, Northamptonshire, Eng- land. He states in his autobiography that he once searched the parish regis- ters of Ecton and found a record of the births, marriages and burials of his direct ancestors back to 1555, and discovered that he was the youngest son of the youngest son for five generations.
THOMAS FRANKLIN, the grandfather of the great American philosopher, was born at Ecton, in 1598, and lived there until extreme old age, when he retired to the residence of his son John, at Banbury, Oxfordshire, where both of them died. The eldest son, Thomas Franklin, continued to live in the ancestral abode at Ecton until his death, devising it to his daughter, who later sold it, and it passed permanently out of the family after an occupancy of at least three hundred years. Thomas, the son, acquired a legal education and became a local barrister and "a considerable man in the county, chief mover of all pub- lic spirited enterprises for the county or town of Northampton, as well as of his own village, of which many instances were related; and he was much taken
692
DUANE
notice of and patronized by Lord Halifax". He died January 7, 1702. Benja- min Franklin, another son, was a silk dyer, serving an apprenticeship in Lon- don. He was nearest the counterpart of the American philosopher of any of the four sons of Thomas Franklin, being an assiduous student, something of a politician, and the inventor of a system of short-hand, by which he took down sermons of distinguished divines, which he later reduced to writing and collect- ed in several volumes. He was also a collector of old pamphlets and books on political events, and a writer of prose and verse, leaving two quarto volumes of manuscript of his own poems which he brought with him to America, whither he followed his younger brother Josiah about 1707. He died in Boston at an ad- vanced age.
JOSIAH FRANKLIN, youngest son of Thomas, and the father of Dr. Benja- min Franklin, was born at Ecton, Northamptonshire, in 1655. He learned the trade of a wool-dyer with his elder brother, John Franklin, and followed that vocation in England and for some years in Boston after his emigration, which was largely prompted by his desire to exercise his religious convictions in peace, and free from the persecutions which were then frequently visited in England upon the Presbyterians. Upon the death of his first wife he married Abiah Folger, (b. 1667, d. 1752) daughter of Peter Folger, one of the early settlers of Boston, and at one time a prominent resident of the island of Nan- tucket, a pious and scholarly man, and a writer of prose and verse on religious subjects, principally in opposition to religious persecutions and in favor of full liberty of conscience. Josiah Franklin. not finding sufficient demand for his services as a wool dyer in his new abode, took up the business of tallow chand- ler and soap boiler, and in time acquired a substantial competence. He was a man of considerable education and sound judgment, pious and industrious, and possessed of the same sturdy common sense and practical application which were characteristics of his illustrious son. He died in 1744, at the age of 89 years.
The limits of this brief sketch will prove entirely inadequate to give more than a short synopsis of the illustrious career of the great American journalist, scientist, statesman and philosopher, and his eminent services to his country, at home and abroad, in times of peace and of war, in the commonest affairs of daily life as well as in the halls of legislation and the courts of crowned princes, his wonderful discoveries in the realms of science, and his influence in the es- tablishment of educational and charitable institutions. Some idea of his ex- traordinary career can perhaps be most readily conveyed by copying the chron- ology of a bronze tablet which is about to be erected (1910) upon the wall of Christ Church burying ground, at Fifth and Arch streets, adjacent to Frank- lin's grave.
CHRONOLOGY OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.
1706-Born at Boston, January 17.
1723-Removed to Phiadelphia.
1729-Editor of Pennsylvania Gazette.
1730-Appointed Public Printer.
1731-Founded the Philadelphia Library.
1736-Organized the First Philadelphia Fire Company.
1737-Appointed Postmaster of Philadelphia.
1738-Member of the Provincial Assembly.
693
DUANE
1741-Established first American Magazine.
1742-Invented the Franklin Open Stove.
1743-Founded the American Philosophical Society.
1749-Projected University of Pennsylvania.
1751-Founded the Pennsylvania Hospital.
1752-First to utilize electricity.
1753-Deputy Postmaster-General for the Colonies.
1754-Delegate to Congress at Albany.
1756-Colonel of Provincial Militia.
1757-Agent to Great Britain for Pennsylvania, Georgia, New Jersey and Massachusetts.
1764-Speaker of Pennsylvania Assembly.
1769-President of American Philosophical Society.
1775-Delegate to the Continental Congress. Chairman of the Committee of Safety. Proposed "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union." Postmaster-General of the Colonies.
1776-Signed the Declaration of Independence. President of Constitutional Convention of Pennsylvania.
Commissioner to the Court of France.
1778-Negotiated Treaties of Amity and Commerce and of Alliance with France. Minister Plenipotentiary to France.
1783-Signed Treaty of Amity and Commerce with Sweden.
Signed Treaty of Peace with Great Britain.
1785-Signed Treaty of Amity and Commerce with Prussia. President of the Provincial Council.
1787-Member of Constitutional Convention of United States.
1790-Died at Philadelphia, April 17.
A second bronze tablet near by will contain a medallion of Franklin and the following quotations :
THE LAST RESTING PLACE OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN-1706-1790.
"Venerated for Benevolence, Admired for Talents, Esteemed for Patriotism, Beloved for Philan- thropy."
Washington.
“The Sage whom two worlds claimed as their own." Mirabeau.
"He tore from the skies the lightning and from tyrants the sceptre."
Turgot.
It was the lot of Franklin to live through the great epoch-making period of American history. Coming to years of understanding when but little more than the coast line of North America was inhabited by people of diverse na- tionality, faith and political ambition, he lived to see a united country of free and enlightened people, extending from the great lakes to the gulf, and fast pushing their homes and enterprises westward beyond the great "Father of Waters" towards the Pacific.
Benjamin Franklin was taught at home the rudiments of an English educa- tion, and once said that he could not remember the time when he could not read. His father first designed to fit him for the ministry, and with this end in view placed him at eight years of age in a grammar school at Boston, but he had spent less than a year in this institution when his father decided that he could not afford the cost of a college education, and placed him in a less pre-
694
DUANE
tentious educational institution where he received instruction in writing and arithmetic under the then famous George Brownwell. This lasted but one more year, and at ten years of age he was taken from school to assist his father in his business as a tallow chandler. He naturally disliked the work, and after about two years of this employment he was apprenticed to his elder brother James Franklin, who in 1717 had returned from England with a print- ing press and type, set himself up in business in Boston, and about 1720 began the publication of a newspaper known as the New England Courant, the sec- ond newspaper established in America. From infancy Benjamin had been pas- sionately fond of reading, and his apprenticeship brought him in touch with apprentices of booksellers, who secured him books from their master's stalls, which had to be read during the night and returned in the morning, and he often sat up the greater part of the night reading. The friendship of Matthew Adams, who frequented the printing office, gave him access to a pretty fair library, and his small earnings were all expended in books. He even induced his brother to allow him a small sum in lieu of part of the food he was to get as part of his indenture, and, adopting a vegetable diet, he managed to save a few pennies each week to be expended for education and self-improvement. Making the acquaintance of one John Collins, who later joined him in Phila- delphia, they engaged in argument on various subjects, writing their disputa- tions and exchanging them at intervals. He also chanced upon a copy of the London Spectator, then the novelty of the day, and was much impressed with the literary style of the articles published in it, and, for the purpose of improv- ing his own style, made notes of the subject matter, and after he had forgotten the text, set himself to reform the narrative in his own language and then by comparing it with the original discovered and corrected his faults. He also devoted some time to mathematics. He was an excellent judge in the selection of books, early mastering Locke on "The Human Understanding," and "The Art of Thinking," Xenophon's "Memorable Things of Socrates," the "Pilgrim's Progress," and a number of "Plutarch's Lives."
He became a clandestine contributor to his brother's journal, the New Eng- land Courant, putting his anonymous papers in a disguised hand under the door of the printing office at night. They were published, and so well re- ceived that he later acknowledged their authorship, although his brother, being of a somewhat jealous disposition, disapproved of his scribbling as tending to make him vain, and as being of little use to him in the commoner affairs of the printing business. This led to further disputes between them, but the Courant having published something distasteful to the government, James Franklin. the editor, was arrested and confined in jail for a month, during which time Benjamin managed the office so successfully that when James was released on condition that he no longer publish the New England Courant, he relieved his brother and apprentice from his indenture, which was to have continued until he was twenty-one, and placed his name at the head of the paper as the publisher. The disputes however continued and Benjamin decided to leave Boston and go to New York. Selling his books to raise sufficient money for the trip, he secretly embarked for that city, which he reached in October, 1723. Offering his services to the veteran printer, William Bradford, who had lately removed from Philadelphia, he was told that the latter's son, Andrew Bradford, in Phila-
695,
DUANE
delphia, had lost his principal assistant and might want to employ some one in his place. This decided the young printer to make his way to Philadelphia, and walking the fifty miles from Amboy to Burlington, and securing passage down the river in a small boat which chanced to pass, Franklin arrived in Philadelphia one Sunday morning in the month of October, 1723. Not finding the position with Andrew Bradford open, he secured employment with one Keimer, who had lately established a printing business, and with him he re- mained for a little over a year. In the meantime he had formed the acquaint- ance of Sir William Keith, colonial Governor of Pennsylvania, who pretended to take a lively interest in the young printer, urging him to set up in the print- ing business for himself and promising patronage and an advance of funds for the necessary equipment. In April, 1724, young Franklin paid a filial visit to his parents at Boston, and sought his father's advice and assistance in reference to the project. Josiah Franklin strongly advised against it by reason of his son's youth, he being but seventeen years of age, but promised to assist in es- tablishing him in business when he should be twenty-one. He wrote a letter to Governor Keith to that effect, which, when Franklin delivered it on his re- turn to Philadelphia, led Sir William to promise to establish Franklin himself. The matter was delayed for several months, and Sir William proposed that Franklin should go to England to purchase the necessary outfit. Arrangements were completed for him to sail, and Keith continued his promise of a letter of credit for the purchase of the outfit from time to time, finally promising that it would be sent on board the ship before sailing. Franklin therefore took passage, with barely enough money to pay for the trip, and the Governor fail- ing to keep his promise, landed in London, December 24, 1724, practically without funds. He secured employment at Palmer's, then a famous printing establishment in Bartholomew Close, where he remained nearly a year. While there he was employed in setting up Wallaston's "Religion of Nature," and, impressed with some of its reasonings, he himself wrote and printed a metaphy- sical pamphlet, entitled "A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain." He next secured a more lucrative position in Watt's printing estab- lishment near Lincoln's Inn Fields, where he was employed until his return to Philadelphia. On the passage to England, Franklin had made the acquaintance of a Mr. Denham, a merchant of Philadelphia, which was continued in Lon- don, and ripened into a friendship which lasted through life. Mr. Denham having concluded his business abroad and being about to return to Philadelphia with a large consignment of goods with which to stock a store, induced Frank- lin to return with him as a clerk. They sailed from Gravesend, July 23, 1726, and landed at Philadelphia, October II, and set up in business on Water street. Mr. Denham, however, died about five months later, and Franklin returned to the employment of the printer Keimer. Here he met Hugh Meredith, anoth- er employee, son of a Welsh farmer of Chester county, of some means, with whom after the lapse of about a year he set up in the printing business on capital furnished by the elder Meredith. Their business, small at first, began to thrive, and Franklin purposed starting a newspaper. His earliest efforts were however, forestalled by his old eniployer and now bitter enemy, Keimer, who, learning of his project himself started a paper, but having insufficient cap- ital or ability to maintain it, about nine months later sold it to Franklin for a
696
DUANE
mere trifle, and thus was launched the Pennsylvania Gasette. The contributions of Franklin's ready pen on events and controversies of the times made the paper immediately popular and procured the firm additional business in other lines. Securing some capital from his friends, William Coleman and Robert Grace, Franklin bought out his partner Hugh Meredith in 1729 and continued the business alone with success. He had made the acquaintance of Andrew Ham- ilton on his voyage to England, and through his influence secured the con- tract for the printing of paper money and the laws for New Castle county. He began the publication of "Poor Richard's Almanack," in 1732, and it "came to be in such demand that I reaped considerable profit from it, vending annually near ten thousand," writes Franklin in his "Autobiography."
Franklin was chosen clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1736, and in 1737 succeeded his old competitor Bradford as Deputy-postmaster of Philadel- phia, filling both of these positions for many years. In 1751 he became a rep- resentative in the Provincial Assembly and filled that position continuously ex- cept when absent on diplomatic missions, during the whole period of the col- onial government. In 1753 he became Deputy-postmaster-general for the whole British colonies. His influence in local, state and national matters had now become very great, but, since the growth of this power and influence had largely arisen from sources not connected either with business or politics, it may be well briefly to consider them.
In the early part of his employment with Keimer, before his voyage to Eng- land, Franklin had collected about him a few literary friends who were in the habit of meeting together to read to one another and confer upon what they read, and later of composing original papers which were read, discussed and criticized at their meetings. Soon after his return to Philadelphia, and estab- lishment in business, Franklin again gathered his acquaintances of congenial tastes into a club for mutual improvement, which they called the "Junto." This club met every Friday evening and discussed morals, politics, literature and natural philosophy, under the direction of a president and other officers, "in a sincere spirit of inquiry after truth, without fondness for dispute, or desire for victory; and to prevent warmth, all expressions of positiveness of opinion, or direct contradictions, were, after some time, made contraband, and prohibited under small pecuniary penalties." In this little assembly were dis- cussed many of the various projects for public improvements and the advance- ment of science and education which have made Franklin famous. One of the earliest questions to come before the Junto was the utility of paper money, which led Franklin to publish a pamphlet entitled "The Nature and Necessity of Paper Currency," which was well received, and had a wide influence.
The next project of importance emanating from the Junto was that of es- tablishing a subscription library. The Junto had hired a room where their weekly meetings were held, and Franklin proposed that the members bring there the few books which each possessed so that all could have access to them. The advantage of this little collection induced Franklin to propose to make its benefits more general by commencing a public subscription library. He drew up a plan by which each subscriber was to pay a certain sum down and a small sum annually thereafter, thus not only establishing a fund for the purchase of books but providing a permanent means of replenishing the stock.
697
DUANE
This resulted in the founding of the Philadelphia Library in 1731. It was soon after incorporated and is yet in existence. The employment of permanent watchmen or police, paid from the city treasury was first discussed and after- wards accomplished through the medium of the Junto. This was followed by the public paving of the streets, and the formation, from the membership of the Junto itself, of the "Union Fire Company," the first volunteer fire company in America. The idea originated in a paper presented by Franklin.
In 1743, Franklin drew up his famous "proposal" for creating an academy, which resulted, largely through his subsequent efforts, in the establishment of the "Academy and College of Philadelphia," which later became the Univer- sity of Pennsylvania, of which Franklin continued to be one of the trustees for over forty years. In 1743 the American Philosophical Society was estab- lished by Franklin, and he later became its president.
In 1747 the Pennsylvania frontier was threatened with invasion by the French and Indians. The refusal of the Pennsylvania Assembly, dominated by the Quaker element, to make any appropriation for defense, led Franklin to publish a pamphlet entitled "Plain Truth," in which he placed the helpless po- sition of the inhabitants of Pennsylvania in a strong light and urged upon his fellow citizens the necessity of union and discipline for defence, by the for- mation of an association for that purpose. The pamphlet had the desired ef- fect and its author was called upon to prepare a plan for the association, which he did, and appointed a meeting in Philadelphia, at which twelve hun- dred signatures were secured, and a further circulation through the State se- cured above ten thousand members for the association. The members then formed themselves into regiments and companies, supplied themselves with arms and elected officers who were duly commissioned by the Provincial Coun- cil in the fall of 1747. The Philadelphia regiment chose Franklin as their colonel, but deeming himself an unsuitable choice by reason of his lack of military training, he declined the honor and recommended a Mr. Lawrence. who was accordingly elected. Franklin later went with Colonel Lawrence and others to New York, to borrow cannon of Governor Clinton, and was taken into the confidence of the Governor and Provincial Council of Pennsylvania as their principal agent in furthering various projects for state defense. He had long since given his support to the "Anti-Proprietary Party" in the Assembly, which generally controlled a majority of that body. The Assembly persistently refused to exempt the property of the proprietaries from taxation for pro- vincial defense. In consequence there was a continual strife between the As- sembly and the Colonial Governors and Council, who refused approval of ap- propriations made by the Assembly for this purpose unless they annexed a provision exempting proprietary property. Franklin's activity in the matter of raising an army of defense in opposition to the vote of the Assembly, would, it was thought by his friends. endanger his position as clerk of the Assembly, and they advised him to resign. His reply was that he had heard or read of a certain public man who made it a rule never to ask for an office and never to refuse one when offered to him. "I approve," he said, "of this rule, and shall practice it with a small addition; I shall never ask, never refuse, nor ever RE- SIGN an office. If they will have my office of Clerk to dispose of it to another, they will have to take it from me. I will not, by giving it up, lose my right
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.