Author's visit to Perth Amboy prompted by 'American tragedy'
An Evening with Daniel Mark Epstein was held at the Proprietary House on June 30.
Author's visit to Perth Amboy prompted by 'American tragedy' An Evening with Daniel Mark Epstein was held at the Proprietary House on June 30. Check out this story on USATODAY.com: http://mycj.co/2uiS8ya
Suzanne Russell, @SRussellMyCJ Published 2:27 p.m. ET July 3, 2017 | Updated 2:29 p.m. ET July 3, 2017
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Author Daniel Mark Epstein(Photo: ~Courtesy of Sarah Longaker)
PERTH AMBOY - As part of the city's July 4th celebration there will be a gathering Tuesday at the Proprietary House, where a re-enactor will portray Royal Governor William Franklin, the son of founding father Benjamin Franklin.
Both Franklins are the subject of a new book and just days ago, Daniel Mark Epstein, author of "The Loyal Son, the War in Ben Franklin's House," visited the Proprietary House on Kearny Avenue in Perth Amboy, the former royal governor's mansion.
The visit was a thrill a long time in coming for Epstein who had originally hoped to visit three years ago.
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"By the time I actually could have gone there I was so far advanced in the writing of the book and I had such a clear vision of what Perth Amboy and Proprietary House looked like in 1760, 1770, I didn't want that vision to be troubled. But now that the book is written, it's going to be a thrill for me to be in that space and I'm sure they have done a good job in restoring it," said Epstein in a telephone interview days before his June 30 book signing program "An Evening with Daniel Mark Epstein" hosted at the Proprietary House by the Proprietary House Association.
Proprietary House in Perth Amboy presented "An Evening with Daniel Mark Epstein," on Friday, June 30. (Photo: ~Courtesy of Proprietary House Association)
Epstein researched his book for five years, but none of that time involved a visit to Perth Amboy.
During that time Mary Ellen Pavlovsky, trustee of the Proprietary House Association, said the organization received an email inquiry from Epstein asking if the organization knew the location of the original portrait of William Franklin which had been available for view in the 1970s before ownership changed hands. Pavlovsky indicated it's in private ownership, but she had a photograph from the 1970s of the original portrait as well as a copy of the portrait, which is not exact.
William Franklin (Photo: ~file)
Epstein asked if he could use their portrait and representatives from Random House, the publisher of Epstein's book, sent someone to photograph the copy.
"Perth Amboy is quite prominent in William Franklin's history," said Pavlovsky, who invited Epstein to come to the Proprietary House to talk and see the house.
Appearing on the book's jacket cover is Proprietary House's portrait of William Franklin, an oil canvas portrait painted and donated by Perth Amboy artist Danuta Wyszynski. It is a copy of the circa 1790 original, which is attributed to Mather Brown. Wyszynski was scheduled to attend Epstein's book signing event.
Proprietary House's place in history
Proprietary House is owned by the State of New Jersey and the museum, at 149 Kearny Ave., Perth Amboy, is operated by the Proprietary House Association. It is the scene of William Franklin's arrest as a traitor by patriot forces on June 19, 1776, which marked the loss of King George III's last hold for governing the 13 American colonies — just weeks before independence was declared in Philadelphia.
Proprietary House in Perth Amboy. (Photo: ~File)
Epstein's interest in the Franklins is not new.
"About 15 years ago I wrote a poem called "The Lightning and the Key" which is about this subject, about this relationship," said Epstein, adding he was intrigued by the picture of Benjamin Franklin and his little boy flying a kite in the thunderstorm.
Epstein said he learned the image of the boy, was actually a young man 22 years old and his father, 44.
"Young William was an illegitimate child who had been adopted by his father and his stepmother, Benjamin Franklin's common law wife, and that they indeed had been very close, partners in politics and military things. And then William grew up to be the last royal governor of New Jersey and the two of them had a parting of the ways," said Epstein, an Ohio-based author who has previously written books about singers Bob Dylan and Nat King Cole, as well as Abraham Lincoln and Edna St. Vincent Millay.
Epstein thought the Franklins were a really interesting story, but years went by and he wrote several other books. Then, in 2011 while searching for a theme for a new book, he remembered the intriguing story of the Franklin's relationship.
"I needed to find out more about it. I needed to find out the real facts there. I was particularly intrigued by what I had heard that Benjamin Franklin did absolutely nothing to rescue his son from that dungeon in Litchfield where he was incarcerated for almost a year during the war. Was it really true that his father hadn't done anything?" Epstein said.
"It's a great bit of history. This is sort of the civil war of the revolution in microcosm. It's a great subject and an American tragedy," said Epstein, a dramatist and a historian. "And this was a great tragedy on the scale of the Greek tragedies."
A sketch of the Proprietary House from the 1770s (Photo: ~Courtesy of the Proprietary House Association)
It took Epstein five years to write the book, and more than a year to do the research at the Library of Congress as well as reading biographies on Benjamin Franklin, George Washington and Marquis de Lafayette.
"Writing a biography is not just research, the research is the smallest part of it," Epstein said. "At a certain point you have the data that you need and the real challenge is to recreate the people and the situations in a way that makes them alive and breathing on the page."
Epstein said the powerful passions in families bring people together and pull them apart, and such is the case with the Franklins.
He said Benjamin Franklin was just 24 when William was born. William was very gifted, intelligent, handsome and charming and the two worked together on electricity and later in the French and Indian War establishing the defense of the frontier and then in the 1750s as sort of an embassy to London to represent the Pennsylvania Assembly against the proprietors who wouldn't pay taxes.
"They worked together, they were like best friends and then during the Revolution William Franklin was the royal governor of New Jersey and totally loyal to the crown, famously loyal to the crown and when all the other royal governors stepped down, stepped aside during the Revolution, he stayed in his office loyal to the king while Benjamin Franklin, fairly late in the game, it wasn't until a couple of years before 1776 that he actually decided that he was going to be on the side of the patriots," Epstein said.
He calls the men's falling tragic.
"It wasn't like they hadn't had a relationship and then the fact that even after the war that they could never be reconciled to me was just a terrible tragedy," said Epstein who wanted to figure our why.
According to Epstein, William Franklin did want a reconciliation but his father did not.
The father and son had been living in different worlds — literally and figuratively. Benjamin Franklin was living in London as the agent for the Massachusetts, Maryland and Pennsylvania assemblies. He was the agent against the crown, while William was trying to keep New Jersey together as a colony and keep them from going over to the side of the revolution.
"In England, 3,000 miles away, Benjamin Franklin learned to detest the parliament and the corruption he saw in the government there and William Franklin wasn't seeing that. He was just trying to do the king's business in New Jersey," he said.
Epstein also thinks there was a little bit of jealousy on the part of Benjamin, almost an oedipal sense that he was in competition with his son.
"Some of the letters are very revealing on that score," he said.
According to Epstein after the war, William Franklin made much more of an effort to reach out to his father, and for his father there was a certain point where William went over the top after he was released from prison. He said William Franklin could have gone to England and become an ex-patriot, but he didn't; he continued to lead a military force against the revolution.
"And his father just never forgave him," Epstein said.
July 4 at the Proprietary House
The Proprietary House July 4th celebration begins at 12:30 p.m. with an open house at 149 Kearny Ave. At 1 p.m., participants will process to City Hall Circle for the reading of the Declaration of Independence, speeches and the ringing of the Liberty Bell at 2 p.m. For more information on the Proprietary House, call 732-826-5527, email info@theproprietaryhouse.org or visit hwww.theproprietaryhouse.org/.
Staff Writer Suzanne Russell 732-565-7335; srussell@mycentraljersey.com
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