Franklin Court

The white steel frame in the courtyard outlines the dimensions of the vanished three-story house. The court is named after Benjamin Franklin, a printer and representative of Pennsylvania in London: his Philadelphia home stood here, deep within the block. In the autumn of seventeen sixty-five, this house nearly had to be defended with weapons—the owner was across the ocean at the time.

After decades in rented premises, Benjamin and Deborah Franklin decided to build a home of their own. Benjamin hired a craftsman, but before the work was finished, he left to seek decisions for Pennsylvania in London. The construction and the family finances remained with Deborah. Their prosperity grew from the printing shop and the store: the husband published a newspaper and almanacs, while the wife traded, kept the accounts, and managed the business during his absences. From London, Franklin demanded the window dimensions, asked about the cellar, and ordered the room containing his papers to be kept locked. Deborah moved books, checked the stoves, and waited for his instructions even before driving nails for pictures.

That same year, the Parliament of Great Britain introduced the Stamp Act. Newspapers, legal documents, and even playing cards were to be printed on special paper with a paid stamp. Franklin tried to object to the Stamp Act, but then decided that the law would be passed anyway and proposed his ally John Hughes for the position of seller of stamped paper. In Philadelphia, this was taken as proof that Franklin himself had helped devise the tax. Threats appeared to tear down the homes of Hughes and Franklin.

For nine days, acquaintances tried to persuade Deborah to leave. She refused. There were no weapons in the house, so Deborah asked a cousin to bring one or two guns, summoned her own brother with his gun, and turned one of the rooms into an ammunition store. Upstairs, she ordered a defense arranged that she herself would be able to manage. Deborah declared that she had harmed no one and would not leave her own home.

That night, no attack took place. Friends and neighbors came to offer help; Deborah was told that eight hundred townspeople were ready to defend anyone whose home someone tried to wreck. After receiving her letter, Franklin replied that a woman who had decided to defend her home deserved a good home. In seventeen sixty-six, Parliament repealed the Stamp Act after hearings at which Franklin also spoke, but he did not return home: his mission continued.

Deborah died in seventeen seventy-four. Benjamin arrived in Philadelphia a year later. The spouses never shared the home they had built for a life together. Later, Franklin lived here with his daughter’s family and died here in seventeen ninety.

In eighteen twelve, Franklin’s grandchildren demolished the house: land in the city center brought in more income if it was built over with rows of premises for rent. Fragments of the foundation and the cellar kitchen remained from the old building. Above them stands the white frame, and lines from Benjamin’s and Deborah’s letters are set into the stone paving slabs of the courtyard—his instructions from London and her reports from the home she once prepared to defend on her own.