HGB Ep. 578 - The Life and Afterlife of Benjamin Franklin

Moment in Oddity - Pound Cake

One of the most basic cakes ever made is the pound cake. The oldest recorded recipe for pound cake was in Hannah Glasses' "The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy" in 1747. While most people might think the etymology of pound cake is due to the weight of the sweet treat, the name is actually related to the quantity of its ingredients: one pound of flour, one pound of eggs, one pound of sugar and one pound of butter and some salt. This staple of family gatherings and picnics would be quite dense using that recipe. The basic recipe has remained the same since 1747 and has endured probably because of the simplicity of the recipe. It was easy to remember for those who could not read or write. The pound cake originated in Britain and was so popular that the recipe quickly migrated to the colonies of America with the first recorded recipe in 1754 being attributed to Wicomico Church, Virginia. The original recipe started mutating in the 1800s, eventually adding ingredients to make it less dense and heavy. Ingredients like baking powder, milk, buttermilk, sour cream and vanilla have lightened the load of this dessert staple. Not only has the cake become lighter over the years, but the additional ingredients give the dessert a moist and tender texture. The fact that pound cake didn't acquire its name due to its weight or how much it cost, but rather to the uniform individual weight of nearly all the ingredients and that that formula actually worked, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - Robert Frost Poem Published

In the month of March, on the 7th, in 1923, Robert Frost's poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" was published. Frost had been born in California, but after his father died when he was eleven, his mother moved him with her to Massachusetts and thus he would always be associated with New England. He graduated valedictorian from his high school and went on to attend Dartmouth and Harvard, but didn't finish a degree. He married Elinor White and the couple decided to try their hand at running a New England farm. They added four children to the mix and struggled in poverty for nearly 20 years. Feeling utterly depressed, Frost moved the family to England in 1912 and he tried his hand at poetry. He published a collection of them as "A Boy's Will" in 1913. World War I brought the family back to America and they settled on a New Hampshire farm while Frost continued to write. The American public fell in love with his poetry and Frost went on to read some of it at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy. He lectured at universities and received 44 honorary degrees. This particular poem was very popular and the last stanza "The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep." has been interpreted by some to be representative of death, while others see it as an appreciation of nature. Robert Frost did finally sleep in 1963.

The Life and Afterlife of Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin was a little bit of everything: inventor, diplomat, statesman, author, publisher, a Founding Father and a bad boy. He helped guide America through the growing pains of becoming a constitutional republic guiding its own destiny separate from Great Britain. Philadelphia became his home and the caretaker of the cemetery where he was buried in that city once said, "If Ben Franklin haunts the city and the streets of Philadelphia, he haunts it with his personality and his invention." And it might seem that he haunts a couple of places with his actual spirit as well. Join us for the history and hauntings of Benjamin Franklin. 

Benjamin Franklin ran away to Philadelphia when he was seventeen, seeking a new life. When Franklin arrived in Philly, the city was coming into its own as a force in learning and culture. One of the largest libraries in the colonies had just been created. The city declared itself a place of religious tolerance as well, which brought people from many religions. Immigrants from Ireland and Germany flooded into Philadelphia during the 1720s and 1730s. For his part, Franklin would be a gift for the growing city. His life began in Boston though. He was born on January 17, 1706 and while his father desired for him to get a good education, the family wasn't well off and didn't have the money, so Franklin only went to school until he was ten-years-old. There were 17 children in the Franklin household and Ben's dad worked as candle and soap maker. Benjamin supplemented his education with books. He was a voracious reader. James, his brother, worked as a printer and he had Franklin come work with him and he taught him about printing. James would found the third newspaper Boston would have. Franklin had a desire to be published and he asked James to print a letter he wrote. James refused and so Franklin came up with an idea very similar to Lady Whistledown of Bridgerton. His Lady Whistledown was a middle-aged widow named Silence Dogood. Many of "her" letters were published and captured the imagination of Boston. Everybody was talking about Silence Dogood's opinions. James was not happy when he discovered that Silence Dogood was actually his little brother Benjamin. Shortly after that, Franklin left for Philly, but because he was under an apprenticeship to James and didn't tell James he was living, he became a fugitive. 

Since Ben knew printing, he found work in several print shops. The Governor of Pennsylvania convinced Franklin to sail over to London to get some new print equipment to start a newspaper, but apparently the Governor was full of crap and Franklin found himself in London with no way to get home. With the help of an English merchant that he worked for, Franklin was able to return to Philadelphia four years later. He was 21 at the time and started his journey of enriching Philadelphia by forming the Leather Apron Club, which was also known as the Junto. This was a group of tradesmen and artisans and was meant to mimic the Enlightenment groups that met at coffeehouses in Britain. The Junto created a library by contributing their own books and then Franklin expanded on that by starting a subscription library, so that they could raise funds to buy more books. Franklin wrote of this endeavor, "I made a proposition that since our books were often referred to in our disquisitions upon the inquiries, it might be convenient for us to have them all together where we met, that upon occasion they might be consulted; and by thus clubbing our books to a common library, we should, while we liked to keep them together, have each of us the advantage of using the books of all the other members, which would be nearly as beneficial as if each owned the whole." In 1731, Franklin wrote the charter for the Library Company of Philadelphia. A couple years before that, Franklin became the owner and publisher the Pennsylvania Gazette. He continued his practice of writing under pseudonyms.

Franklin brought his Enlightment values and another pseudonym to his next big endeavor, which was Poor Richard's Almanack, a booklet of information about weather and household tips, with some proverbs thrown in for good measure. The most widely known was "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." He published that every year from 1733 to 1758. In 1753, there were fifteen English newspapers published in the colonies and Franklin published eight of them with a couple of his printing partners, one of whom was one of the first female printers, Elizabeth Timothy. Very early in his time in Philly, Benjamin joined the local Masonic lodge and he worked his way up to grand master by 1734. He remained a lifelong freemason.

The main woman in Franklin's life would be Deborah Read, the daughter of his landlady. He first met her when he was 17 and she was 15. He asked her mother if he could marry Deborah and she said, no. While he was in England, Deborah married another man who eventually abandoned her and his fate was unknown so she couldn't divorce him. When Franklin returned to Philly, he took up with Deborah again, but they couldn't marry due to bigamy laws, so they lived together in a type of common law marriage. They had two children, a son named Francis Folger Franklin - born in 1732 - and a daughter named Sarah Franklin - born in 1743. Francis died from small pox at the age of four because his mother wouldn't allow him to be vaccinated. At some point before the relationship with Deborah started, Franklin had a son out of wedlock named William. Franklin did claim him and never revealed who the mother of William was and he and Deborah raised him. Despite Franklin eventually becoming a Founding Father, his son William was loyal to Britain and served as colonial governor for New Jersey from 1763 to 1776. After the Revolutionary War, he ran to Britain and died in exile. 

Benjamin would travel to Britain and other parts of Europe through the years and Deborah never joined him because she was afraid of the water. This freed him up for frivolity in Britain at places like the Hellfire Club. Franklin was never a member, but his good friend Sir Francis Dashwood was and he would join him there for debauchery that included drinking, gambling and orgies. People also suggested that the club practiced occult rituals and they paid homage to the gods Bacchus and Venus. Members danced in fancy clothes and often dressed as Biblical characters. The club motto was Fais ce que tu voudras (Do what thou wilt), which probably sounds familiar as Aleister Crowley adopted the same motto. The Hellfire Club started in the former Medmenham Abbey, but eventually moved to the caves at West Wycombe starting in the 1750s. The club was no longer active by the mid 1760s and legends claim that the caves remain haunted to this day. One of the spirits here is said to belong to a young maid, named Sukie, who was accidentally killed in the caves.The former steward of the club, Paul Whitehead, is also said to haunt the caves.

Part of the reason why Franklin would go to Europe was due to politics. He became very active in civics and served as a representative of the Pennsylvania Assembly starting in 1751. He would be elected Speaker of the Pennsylvania House in 1764. Franklin also organized the Pennsylvania militia and helped to get a city hospital built. He also set his sights on education and helped create and open the Academy of Philadelphia in 1751, This eventually grew into the University of Pennsylvania, which changed its name in 1791. And he started the postal system in the colonies. The British appointed him postmaster of Philadelphia in 1737 and eventually he became joint postmaster general for all the American colonies in 1753. The British would fire him in 1774 because he seemed a bit too supportive of non-Tory interests.  

Benjamin was also an inventor and we have many modern day conveniences that got their start with him. He invented the lightning rod and said of it, "May not the knowledge of this power of points be of use to mankind, in preserving houses, churches, ships, etc., from the stroke of lightning, by directing us to fix, on the highest parts of those edifices, upright rods of iron made sharp as a needle...Would not these pointed rods probably draw the electrical fire silently out of a cloud before it came nigh enough to strike, and thereby secure us from that most sudden and terrible mischief!" There are some common misconceptions with his Kite Experiment. Some claim he discovered electricity. That was discovered long before this. The kite also wasn't struck by lightning or Franklin would've probably been electrocuted. Ben described his Kite Experiment in this way, "As soon as any of the Thunder Clouds come over the Kite, the pointed Wire will draw the Electric Fire from them, and the Kite, with all the Twine, will be electrified, and the loose Filaments of the Twine will stand out every Way, and be attracted by an approaching Finger. And when the Rain has wet the Kite and Twine, so that it can conduct the Electric Fire freely, you will find it stream out plentifully from the Key on the Approach of your Knuckle. At this Key the Phial may be charg’d; and from Electric Fire thus obtain’d, Spirits may be kindled, and all the other Electric Experiments be perform’d, which are usually done by the Help of a rubbed Glass Globe or Tube; and thereby the Sameness of the Electric Matter with that of Lightning compleatly demonstrated."

Franklin also invented bifocal glasses, the Franklin stove, which provided more heat with less fuel, the glass armonica, which was a musical instrument, and the urinary catheter. He never filed for any patents for any of his inventions saying that "we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, and we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously." But the man's greatest contributions to America, and eventually the world in general, would be his love of freedom and his support of the American effort to guide its own destiny. At least freedom for white men. Like all the Founders, Franklin was a slave owner. He owned at least seven people and their names were Joseph, Jemima, Peter, King, Othello, George and Bob. Peter and King would accompany him on his European trips and were given a small salary. King ran away in 1758 and was found two years later, having been taken in by a Christian woman who taught him to read and write. Late in his life, Franklin became a vocal abolitionist who urged Congress to do something about slavery.

In 1754, he proposed a plan to unite the colonies under a national congress named the Plan of Union and while none of the colonies agreed to the plan, elements of the Articles of Confederation would come from this. While in Europe in 1765, he rallied against passage of the Stamp Act of 1765. This law required that all legal documents, newspapers, books, playing cards and other printed materials in the American colonies carry a tax stamp. That failed and the act passed, igniting the timbers of revolution. The cries of taxation without representation would begin. The House of Commons conducted proceedings later and Franklin testified to have the Stamp Act repealed and it was. With this success, Franklin became the leading spokesman for American interests in England. The colonies of Georgia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts appointed him as their agent to the Crown.

Britain wasn't done with imposing regulations and bills to get more control of the colonies. Anti-British sentiments increased and then the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. Franklin was still in England at the time. His wife Deborah had begged him to come home for months. She was lonely and her health was failing. Deborah suffered several strokes and died in 1774, before the war started. It would be five months before Franklin returned to Philadelphia. Ben was selected to serve as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress. The Congress consisted of delegates from all thirteen colonies and they met in Philly to form the Continental Army and elect George Washington as Commander-in-Chief and create the Articles of Confederation. They also tried to prevent war with the Olive Branch Petition that they sent to King George III. This would be the American government from 1775 to 1783. The Declaration of Independence would be drafted and then ratified on July 4, 1776. Although Thomas Jefferson was given most of the credit for drafting the Declaration of Independence, there were four other men involved: John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston and Benjamin Franklin. This would be the first of four key documents that established the U.S. that Franklin would sign. The others were the Treaty of Alliance with France (1778), the Treaty of Paris establishing peace with Great Britain (1783) and the U.S. Constitution (1787). He was the only man to sign all four. 

In 1776, Franklin was sent to France to get their help with the war. He got the French to sign a military alliance with America and they sent money, soldiers and supplies. Benjamin would become the minister to France starting in 1778, and he helped to draft the document that brought the war to an end, the Treaty of Paris. This was signed in 1783. Two years later, Franklin returned from France and in 1787, he was a Pennsylvania delegate to the Constitutional Convention. He was the oldest delegate at 81. Fellow delegate William Pierce said of Franklin that he was "the greatest philosopher of the present age. He is 81-years-old and possesses an activity of mind equal to a youth of twenty-five." Since Philadelphia was hosting the convention, Franklin was the main host and he came into the meetings much like a king. He was in very poor health, suffering debilitating pain from gout and so he had to be carried into the meetings sitting in a French sedan chair chair carried by four convicts. When the convention ended in September 1787, he urged his fellow delegates to support the U.S. Constitution. It was ratified by the required nine states in June 1788, and George Washington was inaugurated as America’s first president in April 1789.

Franklin lived long enough to see this all come to fruition. It must have been a very gratifying end to a life spent in service. He was 84 when he passed away on April 17, 1790, in Philadelphia. There were 20,000 people at his funeral and he was buried in Philadelphia’s Christ Church cemetery. He left money to his passions of science and education in his two favorite cities: Boston and Philadelphia. Community projects were funded, a trade school was established, scholarships were funded and a science museum was founded. Franklin has been honored on stamps, schools and towns have been named for him and most importantly, his face is on the $100 bill. Franklin Court in Philadelphia is home base for everything about Ben Franklin in Philadelphia. The Franklin Museum is here and features exhibits based on his character traits rather than a time-line or major events layouts, which is kind of how we organized this episode. There is an actual working post office here, a recreated print shop with a working printing press, his toilet and what is referred to as a ghost house. His original home was torn down in 1812. When the Park Service acquired the property, they removed the row houses that had been built on the site and built an open-air structure that matches the dimensions of Franklin's house.  There are also 70’s style concrete bunkers housing archaeological remnants of the original house and letters describing the house.  

We also should mention that bones were found beneath the home that Franklin lived in on Craven Street in Britain. Twelve hundred bone fragments were recovered by archaeologists. It was determined that they probably were connected to an anatomy school run from the house by William Hewson, who was the son-in-law of the landlady, based on dissection marks on the bones. The bones are believed to be from 15 individuals. Hewson died after contracting sepsis during a dissection. He was only 34 at the time. His widow and their three children would move to America after the Revolutionary War to be near Franklin.

(Mort Fun Fact on Farts) Franklin wrote the book "Fart Proudly" and in there he said, "In digesting our common food, there is created or produced in the bowels of human creatures, a great quantity of wind."

Benjamin Franklin had a big spirit and perhaps that is why it is at unrest. His favorite haunt is Independence Hall and that's not surprising since this was the birthplace of the United States and stands proudly as the centerpiece of Independence National Historic Park. The building was constructed in 1732 as the Pennsylvania State House, but loaned its Assembly Room out for meetings of the Second Continental Congress and eventually the Constitutional Convention. George Washington sat in a chair here for three months during the latter convention and the chair was dubbed "The Rising Sun Armchair. James Madison wrote into the federal record the sentiments of Franklin about this chair, "Whilst the last members were signing it [i.e., the Constitution] Doct FRANKLIN looking towards the Presidents Chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that Painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. I have said he, often and often in the course of the Session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting Sun." The full-bodied apparition of Franklin is most often seen in the Assembly Room. Franklin is often examining a copy of the Declaration of Independence when seen. He has been seen wandering other rooms as well. Many people describe his figure having a ghostly mist trailing behind it. 

Another favorite spot for the ghost of Ben is the American Philosophical Society that he founded in 1743. This is the oldest learned society in the United States and their collection of books, photographs, scientific instruments, paintings and other things is extensive. In 1789, the Society made Philosophical Hall its home. Beginning in the late 19th century, people began claiming to see the ghost of Franklin near the library of the Society. And some really crazy accounts claim that the statue of Franklin that stands in front of the Society has to life and danced in the streets. One person who had an experience in the Society was a cleaning lady. She was in the library in 1884 and she said a ghostly figure rushed at her and knocked her over as it made its way towards the stacks. The description she gave of the apparition, matched what Franklin looked like.

Spiritualists claimed to hear from Ben Franklin a lot during seances. An English medium named Mrs. Manley claimed to get a message from Franklin in 1872 and in it, he claimed to have invented the terrestrial telegraph. She wrote out the following message, "On arriving in spirit-life, having while on earth thought much upon the subject of electricity, I saw that the magnetic telegraph could be made a success to transmit news all over the earth and under the seas. At once I commenced looking for a human organism which I could impress to carry out what I so plainly saw could be done. … I watched my opportunity and when Prof. Morse’s father and mother came together in coition I was there and projected my thought into the brain of the embryo child, so S.F.B. Morse was really my son, more than the son of his earthly father." Samuel Morse would go on to invent the telegraph and he was born a year after Franklin died, so it was possible. 

Benjamin Franklin was many things during his lifetime. Is one of those things now a ghost haunting his favorite places? That is for you to decide!