The Franklins—yet Again

Everyone, or so it sometimes seems, wants to know more about Benjamin Franklin. Casual readers and seasoned academics alike are fascinated by a man who appears to be the most accessible of the founders and yet remains stubbornly illusive and in the end almost unknowable. Nor does the insatiable and never-ending interest in Franklin focus on the great man, alone. We want to know about his relatives—his wife, his siblings, his children—and his friends. No topic is too obscure to garner our attention as we are persuaded to read just one more book, one more article about Benjamin Franklin, his life, and his times. Both Daniel Mark Epstein and Thomas S. Kidd try, in very different ways and with varying degrees of success, to satisfy our need to learn still more about the man who tamed the lightning.

Epstein's book is strictly biographical. His interest is Franklin's illegitimate son, William, whose decision to remain loyal to King and Empire in 1776 led to a "war in Franklin's house." His approach is narrative rather than analytical. And he often spends as much—even more—time and effort discussing Benjamin's public career and private life as he does William's. Dwarfed by his famous father even in his own lifetime, William remains a somewhat shadowy and incomprehensible figure in a book that is purportedly about him.

The book begins in a strange and unsettling way. Elliot takes us to 1731, describing in vivid detail Benjamin Franklin's romantic and sexual affair with the wife of sea captain Joseph Bradford—an affair that resulted in William's birth. Elliot implies that the beautiful and accomplished Mrs. Bradford was the love of Franklin's life as he lavishes his readers with prose that would give authors of traditional bodice rippers a run for their money. And then we are told that some of this or something like it "may have happened," but that most certainly Mrs. Bradford was not Benjamin's lover, and in fact no one knows who William Franklin's mother was, nor do we know anything about the circumstances surrounding William's birth (Elliot, p. xix). This is a titillating and fanciful story and little more.

Unfortunately, this "story" haunts the rest of the book, and not in ways that would please its author. Because Elliot's footnotes are so few and so sparse, because readers will often look in vain for documentation that should have supported the author's assertions, they can be excused for wondering if even Elliot's most reasonable speculations have any basis in fact. Did Margaret Stevenson, Benjamin Franklin's London landlady, for instance, really greet her new lodger standing "beneath the arch of the door," and recognize that "he was like no man she had ever seen" (Elliot, p. 32)? Was Ellen Downes, William Franklin's first wife, a "perfectionist" whose eyes revealed a "penetrating and analytical, rather than yielding" character (Elliot, p. 72)? Or is all this—and more—mere idle speculation, simply a "story"? This is unfortunate, because Elliot has obviously done his homework. The fourth and last section of the book is especially well-researched and deserving of scholarly attention.

The bulk of the book is devoted—as the title suggests—to the careers of William and Benjamin Franklin and the very different paths father and son took during the era if the American Revolution. Clearly aimed at a popular audience, written in a lively and accessible fashion, The Loyal Son marches us through the public and more often the private lives of its two protagonists. Benjamin's story is a familiar one, William's is less so. William, in Elliot's telling, was bright and charming, a man who made his way in life because he was good at what...