William Franklin

William Franklin (22 February 1730 – 17 November 1813) was an American-born attorney, soldier, politician, and colonial administrator. He was the acknowledged extra-marital son of Benjamin Franklin. William Franklin was the last colonial Governor of New Jersey (1763–1776), and a steadfast Loyalist throughout the American Revolutionary War. In contrast, his father Benjamin was, in later life, one of the most prominent of the Patriot leaders of the American Revolution and a Founding Father of the United States. Following imprisonment by Patriots in 1776 to 1778, William became the chief leader of the Loyalists. From his base in New York City, he organized military units to fight on the British side. In 1782, he went into exile in Britain. He lived in London until his death. Early life William Franklin was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, then a colony in British America. He was the extra-marital son of Benjamin Franklin, a leading figure in the city. His mother's identity is unknown. Confusion exists about Franklin's birth and parentage because Benjamin Franklin was secretive about his son's origins. In 1750, Benjamin Franklin told his mother that William was nineteen years old, but this may have been an attempt to make the youth appear to have been conceived within marriage. Some older reference books give William's birth year as 1731. William was raised by his father and Deborah Read, his father's common-law wife; she had been abandoned by her legal husband but not divorced. William always called her his mother. There is some speculation that Deborah Read was Franklin's biological mother, and that because of his parents' common-law relationship, the circumstances of his birth were obscured so as not to be politically harmful to him or to their marital arrangement.