County: Franklin County
Location of courthouse: E. Main St. & St. Charles St., Union
Location of county: Mid-State, eastern sector, one county W. of Mississippi;
Crossroads of I-44, US-50, MO-30, MO-100 & MO-47, MO-185
Organized: Dec. 11, 1818
Named after: Benjamin Franklin
County seat: Union
Elevation (highest): 1040 feet (317 meters)
Population: 103,967 (2019)
The Person:
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
"Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston on January 17, 1706. He was the tenth son of soap maker, Josiah Franklin. Benjamin's mother was Abiah Folger, the second wife of Josiah. In all, Josiah would father 17 children.
"Josiah intended for Benjamin to enter into the clergy. However, Josiah could only afford to send his son to school for one year and clergymen needed years of schooling. But, as young Benjamin loved to read he had him apprenticed to his brother James, who was a printer. After helping James compose pamphlets and set type which was grueling work, 12-year-old Benjamin would sell their products in the streets.
"Apprentice Printer
When Benjamin was 15 his brother started The New England Courant the first "newspaper" in Boston. Though there were two papers in the city before James's Courant, they only reprinted news from abroad. James's paper carried articles, opinion pieces written by James's friends, advertisements, and news of ship schedules.
"Running away was illegal. In early America, people all had to have a place in society and runaways did not fit in anywhere. Regardless Ben took a boat to New York where he hoped to find work as a printer. He didn't, and walked across New Jersey, finally arriving in Philadelphia via a boat ride. After debarking, he used the last of his money to buy some rolls. He was wet, disheveled, and messy when his future wife, Deborah Read, saw him on that day, October, 6, 1723. She thought him odd-looking, never dreaming that seven years later they would be married.
"Franklin found work as an apprentice printer. He did so well that the governor of Pennsylvania promised to set him up in business for himself if young Franklin would just go to London to buy fonts and printing equipment. Franklin did go to London, but the governor reneged on his promise and Benjamin was forced to spend several months in England doing print work.
"But Franklin thrived on work. In 1733 he started publishing Poor Richard's Almanack. Almanacs of the era were printed annually, and contained things like weather reports, recipes, predictions and homilies. Franklin published his almanac under the guise of a man named Richard Saunders, a poor man who needed money to take care of his carping wife. What distinguished Franklin's almanac were his witty aphorisms and lively writing. Many of the famous phrases associated with Franklin, such as, "A penny saved is a penny earned" come from Poor Richard.
"Politics became more of an active interest for Franklin in the 1750s. In 1757, he went to England to represent Pennsylvania in its fight with the descendants of the Penn family over who should represent the Colony. He remained in England to 1775, as a Colonial representative not only of Pennsylvania, but of Georgia, New Jersey and Massachusetts as well.
"Early in his time abroad, Franklin considered himself a loyal Englishman. England had many of the amenities that America lacked. The country also had fine thinkers, theater, witty conversation — things in short supply in America. He kept asking Deborah to come visit him in England. He had thoughts of staying there permanently, but she was afraid of traveling by ship.
He started working actively for Independence. He naturally thought his son William, now the Royal governor of New Jersey, would agree with his views. William did not. William remained a Loyal Englishman. This caused a rift between father and son which was never healed.
Franklin was elected to the Second Continental Congress and worked on a committee of five that helped to draft the Declaration of Independence. Though much of the writing is Thomas Jefferson's, much of the contribution is Franklin's. In 1776 Franklin signed the Declaration, and afterward sailed to France as an ambassador to the Court of Louis XVI." ~ US History
The Place:
"Franklin County is a county in the eastern part of Missouri, bounded on the north by the Missouri River, which separates it from Warren and St. Charles Counties; on the east by St. Louis and Jefferson Counties; on the south by Washington and Crawford Counties, and on the west by Gasconade County...
"When the first settlers appeared there was a village of 200 or more tepees in the Bourbeuse Valley, but the Indians soon quietly disappeared. The first settlements were made along the Missouri Valley, under Spanish grants, and by Frenchmen, as would appear from the names of various streams whereon they located. The first American settler was probably Kincaid Caldwell, in 1803...James North came in 1818; he built the first water mill, and was drowned near it. The same year came Dr. Peter Kincaid, a Scotchman who had served under Napoleon; he platted the town of St. Albans which was swept away by the flood in 1844...
"The county of Franklin was organized December 11, 1818, and was named for Benjamin Franklin. As originally constituted it included the counties of Gasconade and Osage and portions of Maries and Miller Counties. Gasconade was detached and organized as a county in 1820, practically reducing Franklin to its present dimensions, although its boundaries were not accurately defined until 1845.
"Upon the organization of the county, David Edwards, Philip Boulware, Sr., William Laughlin, David B. Moore and William Harrison, as commissioners, established the county court at New Port, in St. John's Township, near the Missouri River, and erected a small court house. In 1825, on petition of a majority of the people, the General Assembly passed an act for the removal of the seat of justice to some point near the central part of the county, and making Barnabas Stickland, Moses Whitmore and Brackett Barnes to select a location. Union was agreed upon, and Nathan Richards having donated thirty-seven and one-half acres of land for public uses, a log court house was built, in 1828, at a cost of $844.97, and this was occupied until a brick building was erected in 1849...The first county court was held in January, 1821, at New Port...The last session at New Port was November 7, 1826, and the first at the new seat of Union was June 25, 1827...The first session of the circuit court, under Territorial laws was held by Judge Nathaniel Beverly Tucker, March 8, 1819.
"The first inhabitants of Franklin County were the Mound Builders...The Indians were the sucessors of the Mound Builders...
"Most of the Indians gradually left the area, but a remnant were left behind; they belonged to the once powerful tribes of Shawnees, Delawares and Osages, and had a village of 200 to 300 cabins in the vicinity of the Bourbeuse River, named Shawneetown.
"The inhabitants of Franklin County were at this time chiefly distributed in a few settlements along the Missouri River, mainly on "Spanish grants", tracts of land ceded by the Spanish governor of St. Louis. These settlements were known as the "Labaddie" settlement, the "Du Bois" settlement, the "St. John's" settlement, the "Newport" settlement, the "Boeuf" and the "Berger" settlements. A list of the Spanish grants may be found in the History of Franklin County." ~ State of Missouri, History of Franklin County, 1888, Goodspeed, pp. 214, 217, 287