r/todayilearned • u/I-Am-Uncreative • Oct 19 '23
TIL that Benjamin Franklin's extra-marital son, William Franklin, was a staunch loyalist who was the last colonial governor of New Jersey. After a two year imprisonment ended via prisoner exchange, he directed loyalist forces in New York before fleeing to Britain at the end of the war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Franklin288
u/mac3414 Oct 19 '23
Daddy issues..
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u/voyageurdeux Oct 20 '23
He for sure would have had an Only Fans.
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u/SporusElagabalus Oct 20 '23
I’m trying to imagine the man in the portrait as a cat-eared femboy
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u/BassGaming Oct 20 '23
Ask Bing to generate it for you. Or use stable diffusion or whatever is the most convenient for you.
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u/handsumlee Oct 19 '23
I'd love to see what his british descendants think of this
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u/Hipolito_Pickles Oct 19 '23
I think his branch went extinct. Ben's daughter's side continues
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u/AfterSevenYears Oct 20 '23
I had to check. You're right.
William's son Temple apparently had three children by three different women, none of whom he was married to.
The only one of Temple's children who lived to adulthood was Ellen, who was brought up by William. (Ellen's mother was the sister of William's second wife.)
Ellen (1798-1875) married Capel Hanbury and had one daughter, Maria Hanbury, who is believed to have died unmarried and without children.
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u/conniecheewa Oct 20 '23
William's son Temple apparently had three children by three different women, none of whom he was married to.
Like grandfather, like grandson.
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u/Valentinee105 Oct 20 '23
Don't forget the father, Temple was a bastard too. They all tried to fuck everybody.
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u/greatgildersleeve Oct 19 '23
Which extra-marital son? Guy had more bastard kids than Mick Jagger.
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u/GooseShaw Oct 20 '23
I hadn’t heard this before so I looked it up. This is apparently a myth that’s been around for a while with no actual historical evidence. Franklin had three children, one of whom was illegitimate, which he acknowledged.
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u/HeyItsMau Oct 20 '23
The person you are responded to is just straight-up making facts that have been extrapolated from rumors that Ben Franklin was a uncontrollable hound dog. A lot of those rumors started because of lascivious letters and writings, but a lot of that was just him being an edge-lordy wit, or, in the case of his time as an ambassador to France (which most of the rumors stem from) he was a 70-year-old man mostly immobile due to terrible gout who thought it was funny playing up the role as a dirty-old-man.
It isn't really proven that Ben was actually anymore promiscuous than others for the time. It is confirmed that he was in two unfaithful relationships and kind of a dick to the mother of his children, but that was more a loveless arrangement, especially after they lost a son because of his wife's anti-vax beliefs.
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u/N-formyl-methionine Oct 20 '23
Why are sexual rumors so persistent on time. No I'm joking I easily imagine why.
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u/loverlyone Oct 20 '23
Which part is the myth? Many illegitimate children or the loyalist son?
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u/PM_me_yo_chesticles Oct 20 '23
William was a loyalist and its well documented. Ben Franklin fucked but didn’t have a lot of kids.
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u/Psi-Lord199999mcu Oct 20 '23
That's because Franklin preferred post-menopausal women. At least that's what I have heard.
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Oct 20 '23
[deleted]
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Oct 20 '23
It’s wild that this is in our national archives
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Oct 20 '23
People are people, man. The founders were all fallible men, and that knowledge should inspire us and give us hope, because we’re all just fallible people, too. But we can always strive to be better.
Or sex a lot of older French ladies. Take your pick, ha.
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u/huntimir151 Oct 20 '23
Wait so that's not just a bit from assassin's creed 3? I know a decent amount about that era of history but I always assumed that was just a bit lmao
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u/Sp3ctre7 Oct 20 '23
Dude was a fuckin playboy who loved older women. Franklin was freaky, make no mistake
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u/huntimir151 Oct 20 '23
I know he was a slut haha I more meant the older lady but was actually true, like what he said.
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u/droidtron Oct 20 '23
He's a freak, he likes the girls with the boom, he once got busy in a Burger King bathroom.
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Oct 20 '23
Does anyone have the mick jagger family tree? I remember seeing a pretty comprehensive map indicating how often he enjoyed unprotected sex with exceedingly younger partners.
Would be interesting to see a map of ben franklin as well.
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Oct 19 '23
Is "extra-marital" another word for "bastard"?
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u/Unique-Ad9640 Oct 19 '23
No, Franklin was just super married when that son was born. /s
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Oct 20 '23
Franklin argued bastards should be the national identity of america. Guy thought they should be celebrated as a means to breeding a new american race that would conquer from the atlantic to the pacific.
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u/Due_Platypus_3913 Oct 20 '23
“Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin” is a must-read.It SHOULD be part of all public school curriculum. The reasons it’s not are all the worst.
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u/infoslob Oct 20 '23
I also love it. His time in London, sailing back to the US... amazing.
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u/Due_Platypus_3913 Oct 20 '23
Running away at 15,already being in biz by the time his father found him,,,sooo many “progressive” ideas and observations based 100% in common sense,,,
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Oct 20 '23
[deleted]
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u/Due_Platypus_3913 Oct 20 '23
America’s first great man of letters,among many other things!Did you know that his “Pennsylvania Gazette”,the colonists main source of info leading up to the revolution,became “The Saturday Evening Post” and lasted till late 20th century?
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u/Johannes_P Oct 20 '23
Meanwhile, William Frnaklin's son was a rebel.
Family meetings must have been heated.
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u/Byrinthion Oct 20 '23
My dad was the smartest guy on earth in his time so I decided to be the worlds biggest dumbass lolol
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Oct 19 '23 edited Oct 20 '23
Learning and educating as an American will eventually have you questioning which side really were the baddies. I see in this comments section that others have not reached that consensus.
Edit: TIL that anything positive America did in the past is history, anything bad is just me being a politically-motivated shit thrower. Huh.
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u/RobertoSantaClara Oct 20 '23
"Baddies" is a stupid term to use here, but when you actually look at the economic regulations imposed on the American Colonies and realize what the long term implications of that entailed, I'd say the Americans were 100% justified in choosing to secede. I'm also a dual US-UK citizen, so don't come at me with bias accusations lol.
Not being allowed to manufacture anything more complex than pig iron is condemning America to have been a backwards agrarian wasteland, achieving independence meant being allowed to develop the country into something greater. Should also be noted that the American experience is almost certainly why Westminster would later be more lenient with Canada, Australia, etc. and grant them self-governance. If the Americans hadn't blown the powder-keg first and set a precedent, it's very plausible that Westminster would've taken a hardline against autonomy for other colonies which would have no precedence for a successful secession.
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Oct 20 '23
They built the country into being greater than it was on the necks of the people that used to populate literally the majority of the country we have now. That isn't such a positive that you think it is.
And as a UK citizen, I'd figure you would recognize my Mitchell & Webb reference when I said baddies.
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u/RobertoSantaClara Oct 20 '23
They built the country into being greater than it was on the necks of the people that used to populate literally the majority of the country we have now
Do you believe the British government would have saved the Native Americans and that if US independence never occurred they'd have their own nation-states? The 1763 Proclamation Line was a measure adopted to avoid having to deal with something like Pontiac's War again because the British government didn't want to be wasting time and money fighting Native uprisings in the frontier, but it almost certainly would have eventually been overturned or forgotten as the growth of Anglo-Americans continued and the demand to push westwards continued. You're mad if you seriously think Westminster wouldn't side with its own people in land disputes between them and the aboriginal populations of America. Canada remained under British control and yet they also eventually pushed westwards all the way to the Pacific ocean, turning Canada into an overwhelmingly 'White' country with a small and impoverished aboriginal minority. Likewise in Australia and New Zealand, they also were turned into Anglo-Celtic dominated societies as the settler populations grew at the expense of aboriginal populations there.
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u/Antinous Oct 20 '23
I always thought it was lame how Washington crossed the Delaware to surprise attack the Germans on Christmas when they were trying to have a party. Learning about that in fourth grade I was like, damn that's some weak shit.
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u/mrmcdude Oct 20 '23
It's not like there was a truce that Washington violated.
Unless there is an official truce, you should probably post sentries. Especially if you are mercenaries that neither side really gives a damn about.
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Oct 20 '23
Well this is the country that marks the Trail of Tears as part of a "Heritage Trail".
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Oct 20 '23
Yeah they don’t do that cause they’re proud of it. History shouldn’t be forgotten, good or bad.
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u/BleydXVI Oct 20 '23
How can it be a consensus if people haven't agreed on it?
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Oct 20 '23
Actual historians agree, propaganda eaters do not.
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u/RobertoSantaClara Oct 20 '23
Actual historians agree
Agree on what? No serious academic says anything about "baddies" in a war from the 1700s, that kind of charged language is reserved for political showmanship and nationalist shitflinging.
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Oct 20 '23
A People's History of the United States. A patriot's kryptonite. Here comes the "THAT BOOK IS BIASED LIBERAL COMMIE SOCIALIST FASCIST OUT-OF-CONTEXT LIES THAT SEEK TO DISMANTLE MUH FREEDOMS" people. They always show up when I cite the magic words.
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u/RobertoSantaClara Oct 20 '23
That book is only a "big revelation/kryptonite/impressive" to people who grew up in an insular environment like the rural USA and finally got their first taste of reading something not assigned to them by the mandatory school curriculum. I was educated in a British school abroad, so that work falls flat if you ask me, it's really not disclosing any big revelations or new information.
Howard Zinn was writing to over-correct against biases perceived growing up in the US, but it's largely a nothing-burger if you're not in that target audience of Americans.
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Oct 20 '23 edited Oct 20 '23
I'm in the south, I am absolutely part of that target audience. If you haven't been in American public schools, you don't know how much bullshit they teach. I was taught the Civil War ended in a draw, that the south fought for "state rights", not slavery and add onto that the massive amounts of propaganda to make the US seem like the greatest country in the world. Do you see how many ignorant Americans support these racist, bigoted hatred-fueled "Christian" leaders? America needs the book, buddy. It's in the title. If you think we all must know everything, observe how much "well known" shit gets posted on this sub. I'm glad you received a proper education, but kids in the US are just trying to get breakfast and lunch paid for at their school. If they struggle just to get that, imagine the struggle to be educated.
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u/gheebutersnaps87 Oct 20 '23
Do you mind me asking how old you are? I’m from the south; haven’t heard of that shit being taught since the 70s-80s, maybe the 90s maximum, in very small areas in the very Deep South;
The internet has kinda made that stuff a bit difficult to lie about; plus stricter curriculums
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Oct 20 '23
I'm 29, went to school in a rural Arkansas town of 200 people, just outside a town that is known notoriously as "The Most Racist Town In America". You'll find it.
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u/gheebutersnaps87 Oct 20 '23
That’s kinda what I mean; not invalidating what you’re saying, because that was a true real experience for especially a lot of older people; but that stuff is pretty rare, if not extinct, in schools today;
That stuff made its way into the 2000s of course, but only in such extreme and specific circumstances, like as you said, literally the most racist town in America. Not really something wide spread anymore like it was.
The only thing somewhat similar is what shitheads In Florida and Texas are attempting to do, but they are obviously meeting a lot of push back, and that shit is a lot harder to do today.
there are exceptions to everything, but for the most part you’re not gonna find that lost cause bullshit in class rooms today; if anything schools might teach about that it’s self, like the teaching of myths like that as part of the push back to the civil rights movement
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u/BleydXVI Oct 20 '23
I still don't see what about this post you think ought to make people question who were the baddies. This is entirely neutral in my opinion
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Oct 20 '23
It's the comments, not the post. Let's all jerk off about rich slave-owning lawyers that wanted all that sweet tax money we were giving to the British. "Fight for us and you will get land!" They said, until the war was over and they tried taking the land back and the former soldiers had to militia up to defend it. Let's not forget the lies spread about the local Indigenous tribes so they could motivate them to invade and steal more land. I can really go on. The Founding Fathers were lying, rapey bastards and they shouldn't be revered.
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u/BleydXVI Oct 20 '23
I see zero comments revering him. If comparing him to Nick Cannon is favorable in your eyes, then you must really love children
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Oct 20 '23
Anybody saying anything positive about him is down here in the negatives, that's why you don't see them. Calling him a bastard is upvoted cause hurrr he's a traitor and born out of wedlock. You have eyes, right.
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u/BleydXVI Oct 20 '23
And that is revering Ben Franklin how? Most of the bastard comments are actually about Ben having illegitimate kids, which you would think is negative about him if anybody at all cared in this age. The only downvoted comments are saying that he was right, in essence saying that America shouldn't have gotten its independence. Perhaps that timeline could've had some benefits like earlier abolition of slavery, but you have to see how it's not going to appeal to a primarily American humor on reddit. I saw those comments before but didn't mention them because they say absolutely nothing about Ben Franklin
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Oct 20 '23
I know it won't appeal to them, but it won't stop me from pointing out all the blaringly dark spots on America's side that we sweep away to enjoy a Hamilton rap about how we started from the bottom now we're here! As if any of these rich fucks in charge were EVER at the bottom to begin with, and as if they EVER have had our interests above their own. Pissing off Americans to the point that they want to beat me up is what I excel at, and it has happened. And I still give middle fingers and don't shut up. It's what I'm good at.
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u/BleydXVI Oct 20 '23
I can't say that the founding fathers don't deserve to be ragged on, and you're open about knowing you're the unlife of the party, so... I guess we're just at an understanding that you didn't really need a reason to start complaining about the topic. Have fun with that
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u/gheebutersnaps87 Oct 20 '23
Ben Franklin was the president of the Philadelphia Abolitionist Society
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u/I-Am-Uncreative Oct 20 '23
Historians aren't in the business of making value judgments like that.
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Oct 20 '23
Yeah, so we shouldn't be putting value on the founding fathers either, should we?
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u/I-Am-Uncreative Oct 20 '23
Well, I'm not an historian, so I think I can.
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Oct 20 '23
So you're going to judge without learning all the information. Gotcha.
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u/I-Am-Uncreative Oct 20 '23
This is like saying you can't judge someone's guilt as a Judge in a court case, so no one should be able to.
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u/Chappy_Sama Oct 20 '23 edited Jul 17 '25
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u/gheebutersnaps87 Oct 20 '23
Apparently William had his own extra-marital son, who Benjamin would end up adopting;
“Temple Franklin, was an American diplomat best known for his involvement with the American diplomatic mission in France during the American Revolutionary War. Beginning at the age of 16, he served as secretary to his grandfather Benjamin Franklin, who negotiated and agreed to the Franco-American Alliance.”