A Treasury of Great American Scandals (2 page)

Family Ties That
Bind . . . And Gag

 

The American family has always been the nation's most precious asset—not only the very foundation of society and source of all values, but a cozy refuge from a cold and uncaring world.
Or not.
For members of many prominent families, home and hearth were pure hell, made miserable by a variety of ghastly relatives. What follows is a look at some of the most dysfunctional families in U.S. history.

Prepare for a Shock

 

 

 

 

Differing political ideologies have caused plenty of generational rifts over the ages, though few as profound as the one that developed between Benjamin Franklin and his only son, William. The Founding Father proved to be a harsh and vengeful parent.

The relationship didn't start out poorly. As a matter of fact, father and son made a pretty good team. William helped his dad with his
Poor Richard's Almanack,
served by his side defending the Pennsylvania frontier against Indian raids, and acted as his secretary, travel companion, and confidant. Moreover, he was his partner in science—though only in the sense that a drooling dog was partner to Pavlov. As Benjamin Franklin was preparing to conduct his daring experiment to draw lightning from the clouds with a kite and key, he assigned William the job of racing around a cow pasture with the infernal contraption, as the heavens flashed and roared. Ben sat in the safety of a shepherd's shed.

Few today know William ever existed, let alone that he contributed to his father's work. This obscurity may be due to the fact that Benjamin Franklin excised most references to his son from the final draft of his autobiography. The first draft had in fact been addressed “Dear Son” and contained details of their twenty-five-year relationship as partners and friends. This version was temporarily shelved, however, and by the time the elder Franklin resumed work on it twelve years later, he had come to regard William as a bitter enemy.

It all began with the unrest in the colonies over British rule. William Franklin had risen through the ranks to become a royal governor of the New Jersey colony and considered himself a loyal son of the mother country. The idea of revolting against England was abhorrent to him. He believed the fate of the American colonies was intrinsically linked with Britain and that “this unnatural contest” pursued by his father and other American radicals would result in nothing but a horribly destructive civil war. His stance was rooted not in political expediency or material gain, but in a deep conviction that was shared by numerous Americans, including relatives of John Adams, John Hancock, and George Washington. As the revolutionary zeal increased in America, William remained firm and loyal in his commitment to king and country.

The final break between father and son came with the Declaration of Independence, and Governor William Franklin could no longer be tolerated by the new nation. His father arranged for his arrest and imprisonment. And a horrible confinement it was. Removed from his residence in New Jersey, William was taken to Connecticut, where he was eventually housed in a solitary cell with a floor covered in old straw matted from the waste of previous occupants. He was denied writing paper, clean clothes, and bathing or even toilet facilities. Benjamin Franklin absolutely forbade William's son, who was in his care, any contact with his imprisoned father. Urging him to abandon William, Benjamin tempted his grandson with a trip to France, which the boy accepted. “I have rescued a valuable young man from the danger of being a Tory,” a satisfied Franklin wrote.

During his three-year confinement, William lost his hair, his teeth, his health, and his wife, who died. When she was on her deathbed, George Washington was moved enough to write Congress advocating William's request for one last meeting with her. His “situation is distressing and must interest all our feelings,” Washington wrote. “Humanity and generosity plead powerfully in favor of his application.” Ben Franklin did not weigh in with his preference, however, and the request was denied. Franklin, meanwhile, kept the interests of other prisoners close to his heart. Writing at least thirteen letters to his friend David Hartley in the British Parliament, he begged him to help alleviate “all the horrors of imprisonment” for his captive countrymen. He hadn't spoken a word to his son in years.

Nine months after the Revolutionary War ended, and nearly a decade since they last had contact, William got word that his father, then in Paris, would be willing to receive a letter from him. On July 22, 1784, he wrote, “Dear and Honoured Father: Ever since the termination of the unhappy contest between Great Britain and America, I have been anxious to write to you and to endeavor to revive that affectionate intercourse and connection which, till commencement of the late troubles, had been the pride and happiness of my life.” William wrote that he was not sure his father wanted to hear from him because of “the decided and active part I took in opposition to the measures you thought proper.” But he was making no apologies, and in fact made reference to “the cruel sufferings, scandalous neglects, and ill treatment which we poor Loyalists have in general experienced”—though he did not lay any blame for this on his dad. Regarding his activities during the war, William wrote, “I can with confidence appeal not only to you but to my God that I have uniformly acted from a strong sense of what I conceived my duty to my king and regard to my country required. If I have been mistaken, I cannot help it. It is an error of judgment that the maturest reflection I am capable of cannot rectify, and I verily believe, were the same circumstances to occur again tomorrow, my conduct would be exactly similar to what it was.”

Three weeks later, William received a reply from his father. It wasn't exactly conciliatory. Benjamin wrote that he was “glad to find you desire to revive the affectionate intercourse that formerly existed between us. It would be very agreeable to me. Indeed, nothing has ever hurt me so much and affected me with such keen sensibilities as to find myself deserted in my old age by my only son; and not only deserted, but to find him taking up arms against me in a cause wherein my good fame, fortune and life were all at stake.” As for William's principles, the father was unmoved. “You conceived, you say, that your duty to your King and your regard to your country required this. I ought not to blame you for differing in sentiments with me in public affairs. We are men, all subject to errors. Our opinions are not in our power. They are formed and governed much by circumstances that are often as inexplicable as they are irresistible. Your situation was such that few would have censored your remaining neuter, though there are natural duties which precede political ones, and cannot be extinguished by them. This is a disagreeable subject: I drop it.”

Ben Franklin made it clear in his letter that he was not yet ready to see his son, who had been exiled to Britain, where he worked tirelessly for the concerns of Loyalists in America. But a year later they did meet for the last time, to settle financial accounts. Benjamin, nearing eighty and on his way back to America for the last time, “brought all the warmth of a real estate settlement” to the encounter, writes historian Willard Sterne Randall. Father insisted that son sign over deeds to his American property in exchange for the forgiveness of debts owed him. William soon realized Benjamin was making him pay for clothes and pocket money going back to his childhood. The rest of the time designated for the reunion was spent largely apart as Ben met with old friends from England. On the final day, the father slipped away on a States-bound ship, never saying good-bye to his son.

Mother Mary, Quite Contrary

 

 

 

George Washington's mother's tombstone reads, with understated dignity: “Mary, the Mother of Washington.” A more fitting epitaph might have been “Mary, the Bother of Washington.” The Grandma of Our Country proved more aggravating to son George than his false teeth. Mary Ball Washington spent her life in a struggle to keep her son at her disposal. She begrudged him his successes because they kept him, and his money, away from home. Her denigration of his accomplishments led to speculation during the American Revolution that Mrs. Washington was actually a closet Royalist trying to undermine the cause of independence.

Though there is ample evidence that Washington was generous to his mother and that she lived quite comfortably, she never ceased digging deeper into his pockets while loudly complaining of his financial neglect. She seemed to delight in humiliating him as publicly as possible. In 1781, Washington was mortified when he received a letter from Benjamin Harrison, the speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, advising him of a movement in the House—in response to Mary Washington's cries of poverty—to have the state come to her financial rescue. The great Revolutionary commander was forced to make an excruciating public defense of his treatment of his mom. “Before I left Virginia, I answered all her calls for money, and, since that period, have directed my steward to do the same,” he wrote back. “Whence her distress can arise, therefore, I know not, never having received any complaint. . . . Confident I am that she has not a child that would not divide the last sixpence to relieve her from real distress. This she has been repeatedly assured of by me; and all of us, I am certain, would feel much hurt at having our mother a pensioner.”

In 1787, when his mother was suffering from breast cancer, Washington tried to persuade her to move in with one of her children—just not him. He did extend a tepid invitation for her to come and live at his Mount Vernon estate, but warned that she wouldn't like it there. The house, he wrote discouragingly, was like “a well resorted tavern,” always filled with strangers. Their presence would require her to dress each day for company, appear publicly in “dishabille,” or remain a prisoner in her room. “The first you'ld not like. The 2nd, I should not like. And the 3rd, more than probably, would not be pleasing to either of us,” he wrote. George must have been relieved when his mom declined the halfhearted offer and stubbornly insisted on remaining independent.

Foundering Father

 

 

 

 

There are two types of fathers. The first instills self-confidence in his children by offering praise when merited and withholding criticism when possible. The second is John Quincy Adams. Adams's two eldest sons committed the unpardonable sin of being merely ordinary, decent guys. Father J.Q. was appalled. His father had been the second president of the United States. He himself was perhaps the greatest secretary of state in the nation's history, as well as its sixth president. His youngest son, Charles, emerged as a great statesman and scholar. But life for George and John Adams was a series of misguided dreams, base disappointments, and episodes of fragile mental health—conditions of which their father was brutally intolerant.

“I am a man of reserved, cold, austere and forbidding manners,” John Quincy once said of himself. “I have not the pliability to reform it.” His keen insight into himself was particularly apt when it came to his troubled sons. He hovered over their lives like a jealous god, instilling in them not respect so much as terror. Freud would have loved this: Adams's oldest son, George, was sixteen and on his way to Harvard when he described a dream. While receiving flirtatious encouragement from a young lady, “I saw the form of my father visible to me above, his eye fixed upon me.” The amorous feelings toward the girl “relapsed into the most cold indifference,” while the father's voice “rang at my ear—‘Remember, George, who you are and what you are doing.' ” Upon awakening, George “sank into a gloomy torpor”—a state that characterized most of his life.

The deep disappointment John Quincy felt in his sons, and never hesitated to share with them, began in earnest while they attended Harvard. Suffice it to say there were no valedictorians in the bunch. Even Charles, who would later become one of the nation's most successful diplomats, was not spared his father's wrath during this period. “I had hoped that at least one of my sons would be ambitious to excel,” the elder Adams said. Instead, “the blast of mediocrity” was demeaning the family name. He forbade the boys to come home until their class standings improved, letting them know unequivocally they were in disgrace because of the “mortification” they brought him, “mingled with disgust.” He warned, “I would feel nothing but sorrow and shame in your presence.”

The only thing that would remove the blight, he pronounced, was each son ranking in the top six of his class, a number he chose arbitrarily and amended at random. Later, he magnanimously allowed that he'd be satisfied if they were in the top ten. He wanted achievements comparable “with that which your grandfather and your father held.” Rank, however, soon became irrelevant. Middle son John and more than fifty other Harvard students were expelled on the eve of their graduation for staging a rebellion in protest of the school's denial of a popular classmate's diploma. The errant son was never forgiven.