Franklin’s Better Half

We cannot speak often enough of Benjamin Franklin and his contributions to the founding of our country, in America and in Europe, but he didn’t get there alone. Who took care of his affairs at home? His common-law wife and partner of forty-four years, Deborah. History has paid too little attention to her contributions to his success, yet she was an independent, business savvy woman who looked after his children, managed his finances, and even fought off angry mobs from their home at gunpoint as he was busy ‘founding.’

It was in October of 1723 in Philadelphia that 17-year-old Benjamin Franklin first met his future wife, 15-year-old Deborah Read. Franklin had just been to the bakery and was strolling by her home, carrying a ‘great puffy roll’ under each arm and eating a third. She spotted him from her doorway and laughed at his "most awkward, ridiculous appearance."

Born in Birmingham, West Midlands, England, Deborah was one of four children born to Sarah, a medicine maker, and John Read, a successful contract carpenter in Philadelphia. Benjamin Franklin had just run away from an apprenticeship in Boston and had come to the city to seek a printing job.

Puffy rolls and a laugh were enough to start a romance between the two, which heated up when Deborah’s father allowed Franklin to rent a room in the Read family home. The next year, 1724, Benjamin proposed to his ‘Debby.’ Unfortunately, her mother, Sarah, objected - Franklin was not financially stable, and he was already preparing for his first trip to London to meet with potential business backers.

The wedding plans were put on hold, and Franklin left for England. An ocean apart, Benjamin decided to end their engagement, and he wrote to Deborah that he did not intend to return to Philadelphia.

With Franklin out of the picture, Sarah convinced her daughter to marry John Rogers, a British man who had been listed as either a carpenter or a potter. John Read had died, and the family was in financial difficulty; so Deborah relented, and they were married in 1725 at Christ Church, Philadelphia. It was a terrible union from the start; "sweet-talking" Rogers could not hold a job and had already incurred a large amount of debt before their marriage. Four months after the wedding, Deborah left when one of the visiting friends informed her that he had a wife back in England. Rogers took her dowry and

racked up even more debt before disappearing into the night, never to be seen again. Although his fate is unknown, rumors arose that he had gone to the West Indies and been killed in a fight.

Franklin’s London business schemes fell apart, and he was stranded in that city for nearly a year. When he finally returned to Philadelphia, he reconnected with Deborah, who was willing to take him back. Their plans to marry, though, were complicated by the disappearance of Rogers - she was not divorced, and she couldn’t prove she was a widow. If he returned after she married Franklin, she could be charged with bigamy and sentenced to thirty-nine lashes on the bare back and life imprisonment with hard labor!

Married life, Franklin and Deborah decided upon a common-law marriage. On September 1, 1730, they announced they would live as husband and wife at a ceremony for friends and family. Together, they had two children, Francis "Franky," who died of smallpox at the age of four, and Sarah, known as "Sally." Deborah also raised Franklin's son William, who was born early in 1730 and whose mother remains unknown.

Over the next twenty years, Franklin’s star rose; he was a successful writer and publisher, inventor, scientist, and politician, and he spent fifteen years of their union representing the colonies in London. He would ask his wife to go with him, but she always refused.

But then, she was also busy. In addition to running their home, she made and sold medicines with her mother from her own store, and she also worked at his printing business, operating it during his long absences. Ben had given Deborah formal power of attorney to act for him soon after their marriage, an unusual formality for the time. She oversaw his correspondence, possibly writing in his name or forging his signature as she continued his specimen exchanges with his fellow scientists. When he was appointed postmaster and put in charge of mail in all the northern colonies, it was Deborah who sent out bills and negotiated the multiple international currencies required.

In 1757, the Pennsylvania legislature sent Franklin to England to deal with the Penn family, who paid no taxes on huge tracts of land in Pennsylvania. He didn’t get far with the Penns, but he had a grand time in London in the company of his widowed landlady, Margaret Stevenson. Just as Deborah took care of his business in Philadelphia, Margaret became his manager there, and the two wrote to each other and exchanged presents.

While Franklin wasn’t getting much done with Parliament either, he was acting as our agent when they passed the Stamp Act, a significant new tax on colonists. While he was safe in England, Deborah faced the angry mobs at home. Urged to leave the city until things cooled down, she instead gathered friends and family to stand watch over their home, fully armed against the angry mobs.

If Franklin was worried for her safety, he didn’t write about it, but after days of negotiations, he was able to get the Stamp Act repealed.

On December 14, 1774, Deborah died after a series of strokes; Franklin had then been in London for over ten years. His son Billy sent the news to his father: “I came here on Thursday last to attend the funeral of my poor old mother who died the Monday noon … She [earlier] told me that she never expected to see you unless you returned this winter, for she was sure she would not live till next summer. I heartily wish you had happened to come over in the fall, as I think the disappointment in that respect preyed a good deal on her spirits.”

Franklin returned to America five months after his wife died. Despite her wishes, he did not return to Margaret or to London; with war coming fast, he began his next life in France lobbying for military aid. When he passed on April 17, 1790, Philadelphia gave him the largest funeral the city had ever seen, and he was buried beside Deborah in the city’s Christ Church cemetery. In a city with many historic gravesites, the Franklins’ tombstones are easily the most visited. Tourists throw pennies onto the stones in honor of Franklin’s motto that “a penny saved is a penny earned.” Wise advice, especially if you have a Deborah to watch after them!