Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, is known for many things, including his contributions to science, politics, and philosophy. However, he is also known for having had illegitimate children. Franklin had one acknowledged illegitimate child, William Franklin.
William Franklin was born in 1731, and his mother was not his father’s wife, Deborah Read, but rather a woman named Mary Morris. William went on to serve as the loyalist governor of New Jersey during the Revolutionary War, which created a significant rift between him and his father, who was a prominent supporter of the revolutionary cause.
Aside from William, there have been claims and speculations about other illegitimate children, but none have been definitively proven or acknowledged by Franklin himself. Franklin’s writings do suggest he may have had other romantic liaisons, but the extent of those relationships and their potential offspring remain largely speculative.