been compelled to abandon much of their burden, and leave one
boat on the shore of King William’s Island, where it was found
by M‘Clintock, near the middle of the west coast, containing
two skeletons. The route adopted was the shortest possible,
but their strength and supplies had failed, and at that season
of the year the snow-covered land afforded no subsistence.
An old Eskimo woman stated that these heroic men “fell down
and died as they walked,” and, as Sir John Richardson has well
said, they “forged the last link of the North-West Passage with
their lives.” From all that can be gathered, one of the ships
must have been crushed in the ice and sunk in deep water, and
the other, stranded on the shore of King William’s Island, lay
there for years, forming a mine of wealth for the neighbouring
Eskimo.
This is all we know of the fate of Franklin and his brave men. His memory is cherished as one of the most conspicuous of the naval heroes of Britain, and as one of the most successful and daring of her explorers. He is certainly entitled to the honour of being the first discoverer of the North-West Passage; the point reached by the ships having brought him to within a few miles of the known waters of America, and on the monument erected to him by his country, in Waterloo Place, London, this honour is justly awarded to him and his companions,—a fact which was also affirmed by the president of the Royal Geographical Society, when presenting their gold medal to Lady Franklin in 1860. On the 26th of October 1852 Franklin had been promoted to the rank of rear-admiral. He left an only daughter by his first marriage. Lady Franklin died in 1875 at the age of eighty-three, and a fortnight after her death a fine monument was unveiled in Westminster Abbey, commemorating the heroic deeds and fate of Sir John Franklin, and the inseparable connexion of Lady Franklin’s name with the fame of her husband. Most of the relics brought home by M‘Clintock were presented by Lady Franklin to the United Service Museum, while those given by Dr Rae to the admiralty are deposited in Greenwich hospital. In 1864–1869 the American explorer Captain Hall made two journeys in endeavouring to trace the remnant of Franklin’s party, bringing back a number of additional relics and some information confirmatory of that given by M‘Clintock, and in 1878 Lieutenant F. Schwatka of the United States army and a companion made a final land search, but although accomplishing a remarkable record of travel discovered nothing which threw any fresh light on the history of the expedition.
See H. D. Traill, Life of Sir John Franklin (1896).
FRANKLIN, WILLIAM BUEL (1823–1903), Federal general
in the American Civil War, was born at York, Pennsylvania,
on the 27th of February 1823. He graduated at West Point,
at the head of his class, in 1843, was commissioned in the Engineer
Corps, U.S.A., and served with distinction in the Mexican War,
receiving the brevet of first lieutenant for his good conduct at
Buena Vista, in which action he was on the staff of General
Taylor. After the war he was engaged in miscellaneous engineering
work, becoming a first lieutenant in 1853 and a captain in
1857. Soon after the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 he was
made colonel of a regular infantry regiment, and a few days
later brigadier-general of volunteers. He led a brigade in the
first battle of Bull Run, and on the organization by McClellan
of the Army of the Potomac he received a divisional command.
He commanded first a division and then the VI. Corps in the
operations before Richmond in 1862, earning the brevet of
brigadier-general in the U.S. Army; was promoted major-general,
U.S.V., in July 1862; commanded the VI. corps at
South Mountain and Antietam; and at Fredericksburg commanded
the “Left Grand Division” of two corps (I. and VI.).
His part in the last battle led to charges of disobedience and
negligence being preferred against him by the commanding
general, General A. E. Burnside, on which the congressional
committee on the conduct of the war reported unfavourably
to Franklin, largely, it seems, because Burnside’s orders to
Franklin were not put in evidence. Burnside had issued on the
23rd of January 1863 an order relieving Franklin from duty,
and Franklin’s only other service in the war was as commander
of the XIX. corps in the abortive Red River Expedition of 1864.
In this expedition he received a severe wound at the action of
Sabine Cross Roads (April 8, 1864), in consequence of which he
took no further active part in the war. He served for a time on
the retiring board, and was captured by the Confederates on
the 11th of July 1864, but escaped the same night. In 1865 he
was brevetted major-general in the regular army, and in 1866
he was retired. After the war General Franklin was vice-president
of the Colt’s Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company,
was president of the commission to lay out Long Island City,
N.Y. (1871–1872), of the commission on the building of the
Connecticut state house (1872–1873), and, from 1880 to 1899, of
the board of managers of the national home for disabled volunteer
soldiers; as a commissioner of the United States to the Paris
Exposition of 1889 he was made a grand officer of the Legion
of Honour; and he was for a time a director of the Panama
railway. He died at Hartford, Connecticut, on the 8th of March
1903. He wrote a pamphlet, The Gatling Gun for Service Ashore
and Afloat (1874).
See A Reply of Major-General William B. Franklin to the Report of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Conduct of the War (New York, 1863; 2nd ed., 1867), and Jacob L. Greene, Gen. W. B. Franklin and the Operations of the Left Wing at the Battle of Fredericksburg (Hartford, 1900).
FRANKLIN, an organized district of Canada, extending from
the Arctic Circle to the North Pole. It was formed by order-in-council
on the 2nd of October 1895, and includes numerous
islands and peninsulas, such as Banks, Prince Albert, Victoria,
Wollaston, King Edward and Baffin Land, Melville, Bathurst,
Prince of Wales and Cockburn Islands. Of these, Baffin Land
alone extends south of the Arctic Circle. The area is estimated
at 500,000 sq. m., but the inhabitants consist of a few Indians,
Eskimo and fur-traders. Musk-oxen, polar bears, foxes and
other valuable fur-bearing animals are found in large numbers.
The district is named after Sir John Franklin.
FRANKLIN, a township of Norfolk county, Massachusetts,
U.S.A., with an area of 29 sq. m. of rolling surface. Pop. (1900)
5017, of whom 1250 were foreign-born; (1905, state census) 5244;
(1910 census) 5641. The principal village, also named Franklin,
is about 27 m. S.W. of Boston, and is served by the New York,
New Haven & Hartford railway. Franklin has a public library
(housed in the Ray memorial building and containing 7700
volumes in 1910) and is the seat of Dean Academy (Universalist;
founded in 1865), a secondary school for boys and girls. Straw
goods, felt, cotton and woollen goods, pianos and printing presses
are manufactured here. The township was incorporated in
1778, previous to which it was a part of Wrentham (1673).
It was the first of the many places in the United States named
in honour of Benjamin Franklin (who later contributed books
for the public library). Horace Mann was born here.
FRANKLIN, a city of Merrimack county, New Hampshire, U.S.A., at the confluence of the Pemigewasset and Winnepesaukee rivers to form the Merrimac; about 95 m. N.N.W. of Boston. Pop. (1890) 4085; (1900) 5846 (1323 foreign-born); (1910) 6132; area, about 14.4 sq. m. Franklin is served by the Concord Division of the Boston & Maine railway, with a branch to Bristol (13 m. N.W.) and another connecting at Tilton (about 5 m. E.) with the White Mountains Division. It contains the villages of Franklin, Franklin Falls, Webster Place and Lake City, the last a summer resort. The rivers furnish good water power, which is used in the manufacture of a variety of commodities, including foundry products, paper and pulp, woollen goods, hosiery, saws, needles and knitting machines. The water-works are owned and operated by the municipality. Here, in what was then a part of the town of Salisbury, Daniel Webster was born, and on the Webster farm is the New Hampshire orphans’ home, established in 1871. The town of Franklin was formed in 1828 by the union of portions of Salisbury, Sanbornton, Andover and Northfield. The earliest settlement within its limits was made in 1748 in the portion taken from Salisbury. Franklin was incorporated as a city in 1895.
