David Franks: Colonial Merchant

Preface and Acknowledgments

Preface and Acknowledgments A dislike for fiction, particularly fantasy, has shaped the way I’ve used my spare time throughout my life. Whether the format was books, movies, live stage performances—whatever, I have sought reality. One of my favorite reading subjects was the American colonial period and the War of Independence . Unfortunately, the more I read, the more I was frustrated to see the same dozen men idolized and elevated to the status of demigods. Weren’t there thousands of people involved in their deeds? Didn’t Franklin have meals? Didn’t Hamilton have to buy shoes from time to time? Didn’t Jefferson live in rented quarters in Philadelphia and, if so, who was his landlord? Didn’t they get sick? Go to the bathroom? You understand. Finally, in 1997, I noted a book review in the Sunday New York Times that promised a text in which those icons were humanized, where they were brought down from their pedestals and shown to be real flesh-and-blood people. The book, Angel in the Whirlwind, was written by Benson Bobrick, said to be a descendant of a Revolutionary War personality. The story lived up to its advertised content, presenting coverage of the war and the times populated by human beings who confronted everyday issues. It described the winter of 1777–78, in which Washington’s army camped at Valley Forge. Although not the worst winter of the war, it was bad enough for troops who were poorly clothed, underfed, living in the most primitive dwellings, and recovering from numerous war wounds and endless marches through rough, icy terrain. Martha Washington stayed at Valley Forge and prepared breakfasts for the general’s staff. I liked that. While Washington’s army was suffering, General William Howe’s British forces had taken possession of Philadelphia. They moved into all of the best homes and public buildings and made themselves comfortable. Howe concluded , correctly, that it was too dangerous to march an army and conduct a war in snow and ice and was content to sit out the winter in the comfort of the capital city. The British officers organized an endless series of parties and balls and entertainments. A theater group was formed that performed plays and musicals, reputedly of professional quality. The ladies of the town participated fully. Philadelphia had a splendid crop of affluent, attractive, xii charming young women only too happy to attend dances and plays and to mingle socially with the handsome officers of Howe’s legions. A paragraph in Bobrick’s book tells about the Jewish population of America and particularly of Philadelphia. In an aside, we are told that David Franks was the city’s leading Jewish merchant, a loyalist, and that his daughter Rebecca was the toast of the British officers. Wow! I was struck by lightning. I had to find out about this Jewish belle of Philadelphia. Using the Internet, I made one inquiry after another, acquired text after text, and literally exhausted myself finding all I could about this young woman who was the Paris Hilton of her day. It didn’t take very long to learn all there was to know about Rebecca, and to realize that once she left Philadelphia, at age twenty-three, she ceased to be the social princess of those exuberant Philadelphia days. In reading about the lady, however, it became obvious that her father was a far more interesting person, and I thus turned my attention to David Franks. I looked for copies of his biography, only to find that none existed. Several texts discussed him briefly, but no full-length book about his life and struggles had been penned. So I decided to write it myself. Totally unprepared for the assignment, I threw myself into it. Starting at the Henry Library of Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles, I began to identify sources and locations that would offer helpful basic materials. Unfortunately, they were all over the place—Philadelphia, New York, Harrisburg , Cincinnati, London, and elsewhere. This would very probably have stopped me in my tracks had it not been for the Internet, which offered the promise of considerable assistance. I made a very lucky decision to join the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP) and soon received my first copy of their quarterly journal. The lead article was a discussion of antiSemitism in colonial Pennsylvania by Professor William Pencak of Penn State University, in which a fair amount of print was devoted to the Franks family...