William B. Franklin - Early Life

Early Life

William B. Franklin was born in York, Pennsylvania. His father Walter S. Franklin was Clerk of the United States House of Representatives from 1833 until his death in 1838. One of his great-grandfathers, Samuel Rhoads, was a member of the First Continental Congress from Pennsylvania.

Future President James Buchanan, then a Senator, appointed Franklin to the United States Military Academy in June 1839. Franklin graduated first in his class in 1843, before joining the Corps of Topographical Engineers and being sent to the Rocky Mountains for two years to survey the region with the Stephen W. Kearny Expedition. He then was assigned to duty in the administrative offices in Washington, D.C. He served under Philip Kearny during the Mexican-American War and received a brevet promotion to first lieutenant in the Battle of Buena Vista.

Upon his return from Mexico, Franklin served as a professor at West Point for three years before supervising the construction of several lighthouses along the Atlantic Coast in New Hampshire and Maine. In 1852, he married Anna L. Clarke, a daughter of Matthew St. Clair Clarke who had preceded his father as Clerk of the House of Representatives. The couple had no children. In March 1857, he was named the supervisor of the Light House Board and oversaw the construction program across the nation.

In November 1859, he replaced Montgomery C. Meigs as the engineer supervising construction of the United States Capitol Dome. In March 1861, just before the outbreak of the Civil War, he was appointed as the supervising architect for the new Treasury Building in Washington.