Ben Franklin and his mail in Winchester VA?
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The closest to
Winchester VA
Ben Franklin got
He was there to discuss
providing General Braddock
horses, wagons, and supplies.
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Franklin’s fulfillment of this obligation
“with great punctuality and Integrity,”
Braddock wrote Sir Thomas Robinson on
5 June 1755, “is almost the only Instance of Ability and Honesty I have known in these provinces; His Waggons and Horses . . . are indeed my whole Dependance” See Founders Online.
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Ben Franklin again travelled to Frederick MD 19 March 1756 and visited Williamsburg in 21 March 1756 about his postal delivery service.
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Did he appear in Winchester VA? No.
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Start and end of Ben Franklin's Mail service
May 1755 to Aug 1756
We believe this letter by the anonymous gentleman is Ben Franklin.
Because Ben Franklin was very much involved in procurring wagons and horses for Braddock and because that letter announces a new sort of "pony express" postal route to Winchester VA, no one would give someone lesser than Ben these responsibilities, especially since Ben Franklin had much experience in setting up distribution of the Poor Richard's Almanac and distribution of news.
Why anonymity?
He often used anonymity for certain purposes.
Notice how the letter starts? This anonymous "gentleman" is astonished that London is looking at PA as not so helpful to England. This is irony. Ben Franklin knew why London was upset. The Quakers and the Penn Proprietors often had to be pulled and tugged into financing a defense for the settlers in the back country. Ben Franklin fought the Quakers and the Penn Proprietors often to step up and help in this defense. In fact Ben Franklin was hired by the Assembly to to go to London in 1757 to represent the Assembly against the Penn Proprietors and the Quakers.
Source:
Larry Allen Clowser Webb found this letter and posted it in Winchester's Whispers of a Story 31 Dec 2023.
Mail Service to Winchester VA:
Towards the bottom of the letter Ben Franklin announces a mail service to Winchester VA.
When did Ben Franklin start this mail service?
The date of this letter is May 22, 1755.
This mail service had a short run.
By Aug 1756, it was stopped.
Pennsylvania was paying Ben Franklin for this service but voted to stop it.
Virginia and Maryland did not want to pick up the tab.
They felt it was better to use other postal riders. Especially William Jenkins.
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Ben Franklin's letter to George Washington
Ben Franklin, is aged 50, at his prime. He is the leader in building forts in Pennsylvania, roughly parallelling today's Appalachian Trail.
He writes to Colonel George Washington to say mail service will be cut off, unless Virginia is willing to pay to continue the mail service:
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The Post between this Place [Philadelphia]
and Winchester was established for the Accommodation of the Army chiefly, by a Vote of our [Pennsylvania] Assembly;
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they are not willing
to continue the Charge,
and it must
I believe be dropt,
unless your
[Virginia] Assembly
and that of Maryland
will contribute to support it,
which perhaps is scarce to be expected.
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I am sorry it should be laid down as I shall my self be a Loser in the Affair of Newspapers:
But the Letters per Post, by no means defray the Expence. If you can prevail with your
[Virginia] Assembly to pay the Rider from Winchester to Carlisle,I will endeavour to persuade ours to continue Paying the Rider from Carlisle hither [Philadelphia]:
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My Agreement with the House was,
to carry all publick Dispatches gratis;
to keep Account of Postage receiv’d for private Letters;
charge the Expence of Riders and Offices,
and they were to pay the Ballance.
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Source
Letter to GW from BF in Philly, 19 Aug 1756
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"BY JENKINS"
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Mail delivery
was not only provided by Ben Franklin's service.
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You will often see the letter writer
stating a letter
was delivered "by Jenkins."
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From Founders Online
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William Jenkins, whom GW hired as a “Servitor” during his mission in 1753 to the French commandant,
GW used him in Nov. and Dec. 1755 to carry letters to and from Adam Stephen,
but after the spring of 1756 until the end of 1758 when GW left the regiment,
Jenkins seems to have been kept busy conveying letters back and forth between GW and Dinwiddie and,
subsequently, between GW and Dinwiddie’s successors, President John Blair and Gov. Francis Fauquier.
In 1758 Robert Stewart referred to Jenkins as “the old Gentn,” in a letter to GW of 5 Aug.
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Founders Online Footnote
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Sources
Sources for Picture of young Ben Franklin:
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Source of Frederick MD marker
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But, an unrelated item
in research
surfaced.
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Ben Franklin compares the Eagle to the Turkey.
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You have probably seen this story before.
The story normally doesn't mention what prompted Ben Franklin's observation.
It was this medal depicting an Eagle that looked a little like a Turkey to Ben Franklin.
And of course there's Ben Franklin's thoughts of a rattlesnake as a symbol.
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Writing from France on
January 26, 1784
to his daughter
Sally (Mrs. Sarah Bache)
in Philadelphia,
Franklin
casts doubt on the propriety
of using the eagle
to symbolize the
"brave and honest Cincinnati of America,"
a newly formed society
of revolutionary war officers.
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The eagle on the badge
of the Society of the Cincinnati Medal looked more like a turkey,
which prompted Franklin
to compare
the two birds
as a symbol for the United States.
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Franklin writes:
"Others object to the bald eagle, as looking too much like a Dindon or turkey.
For my own part I wish the bald eagle
had not been chosen as the representative of our country.
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He is a bird of bad moral character.
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He does not get his living honestly.
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You may have seen him perched on some dead tree, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labour of the fishing hawk; and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to his nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the bald eagle pursues him, and takes it from him.
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With all this injustice, he is never in good case, but like those among men who live by sharping and robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy.
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Besides he is a rank coward: the little king bird not bigger than a sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the district.
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He is therefore by no means a proper emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America, who have driven all the king birds from our country, though exactly fit for that order of knights which the French call Chevaliers d’Industrie.
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I am on this account not displeased
that the figure is not known as a bald eagle,
but looks more like a turkey.
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For in truth, the turkey is in comparison a much more respectable bird,
and withal a true original native of America.
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Eagles have been found in all countries, but the turkey was peculiar to ours, the first of the species seen in Europe being brought to France by the Jesuits from Canada, and served up at the wedding table of Charles the ninth.
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He is besides, (though a little vain and silly tis true,
but not the worse emblem for that) a bird of courage,
and would not hesitate
to attack a grenadier of the British guards
who should presume to invade his farm yard with a red coat on."
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Sources:
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Society of Cincinat
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Compiled by Jim Moyer , researched 2015, updated 1/16/2021, 12/31/2023
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